Mrs. Raymond welcomed Grace into her home. She motioned to the couch in the living.
Grace sat down, then he set brought out her equipment from her bag.
The living room smelled faintly of camphor and dust. Old newspaper clippings lined a corner table.
"I was told you worked at City Hospital," Grace began. "The year Mrs. Bernard disappeared."
Mrs. Raymond's eyes darkened. She folded her hands together, staring into the air for a long moment.
"Yes. I was there. She was my friend."
Grace leaned forward. "Please… tell me what happened."
The old woman sighed. "She came in one cold evening. She was pregnant, about to deliver. Her husband had just died in that car crash."
Grace nodded. "Yes. The newspapers called it an accident."
Mrs. Raymond gave a bitter smile.
"She didn't believe that. She told me someone wanted her dead too, that if anything happened, I should look after her and the baby. She was frightened, Grace. I could see it."
Grace swallowed hard, her pen trembling slightly.
"What happened next?"
"She gave birth that night. A baby boy," Mrs. Raymond said softly.
"She was weak, but happy. She held him close and said, 'At least now I have a reason to live.' Then she fell asleep. I stayed outside her door, I wanted to keep watch."
Grace listened, every word digging into her chest.
"But then the doctor called me," Mrs. Raymond continued. "He said he needed help with another patient. By the time I got back, Mrs Bernard and her son were already discharged."
She paused for a while
"The bed was empty. The nurse on duty told me Mrs. Bernard had been discharged to the Cole's mansion."
"The Cole mansion?" Grace whispered.
"Yes. I thought she'd be safe there." Mrs. Raymond's voice cracked slightly.
"But a few days later, I tried to visit. Her place was empty. Everything, her clothes, her things; they were all gone. The neighbors said she moved away because of her husband's death. But I knew that wasn't true. She wouldn't leave without telling me."
The room went silent. Outside, a bird chirped once and flew away.
"So… what did you do?" Grace asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"I hired a private investigator," Mrs. Raymond said. "He vanished. I hired another one, he was found dead."
She looked away, eyes wet. "And then they came for me. They kidnapped my daughter. They told me to stop asking questions if I wanted her alive. So I left town. Started over. I've been quiet ever since."
Grace couldn't speak. Her throat burned.
She'd read everything about Mrs. Bernard; every article, every theory and none of them mentioned a baby. Not one.
"But… why wasn't this ever reported?" she managed to ask.
"Because it was erased," Mrs. Raymond said. "They burned the hospital records. Paid off reporters. Anyone who tried to dig deeper disappeared. That's how the story died."
Grace sat frozen. Her notebook had slipped to the floor. For a long while, she just sat there, trying to make sense of everything, the walls closing in around her.
Her phone suddenly buzzed on the table, breaking the silence. She blinked, reaching for it.
A new message.
Donald: Can we meet? There's something I want to ask you.
Grace stared at the screen. For a moment, she forgot to breathe.
Grace's heart skipped.
The words glowed softly on the screen, simple yet unsettling.
She looked out the window, the world outside was calm, but inside her, everything was spinning.
The truth about Mrs. Bernard was still echoing in her head, but now Donald's message pulled her somewhere else entirely. Something in her told her life was about to change again.