Chapter 6 - ROOM 417
"Get the address."
Maxwell's order was immediate.
Raymond searched property records while Audrey sat beside Charlie.
The boy was exhausted.
His small shoulders had been tense for hours.
Audrey asked whether he wanted something to eat.
He shook his head.
Then signed:
"IF WE FIND MOMMY, WILL SHE REMEMBER ME?"
Audrey felt tears burn behind her eyes.
She carefully answered:
"YOUR MOM LOVES YOU. NOTHING CHANGES THAT."
Charlie stared at her.
Then leaned against her shoulder.
Across the room, Maxwell watched.
For eighteen months, strangers had treated his son like a burden.
Audrey had treated him like a child with thoughts, fears, and a voice.
The distinction made something inside Maxwell ache.
Raymond approached.
"I found Pacific Harbor's old rehabilitation center."
"Location?"
"Outside Half Moon Bay."
"Ownership?"
"Transferred to Cross Medical Holdings fourteen months ago."
Maxwell stood.
"That's where we're going."
Audrey gently stopped him.
"Charlie shouldn't be taken into danger."
Maxwell looked at his son.
For once, he agreed without hesitation.
Raymond arranged for Charlie to remain with a trusted relative while police began investigating the property.
Audrey offered to stay with him.
But Charlie grabbed her hand.
He signed urgently.
"THERE IS SOMETHING ELSE."
Audrey knelt.
"WHAT IS IT?"
Charlie made a shape with both hands.
A small box.
Then he mimed opening it.
"A KEY?"
Charlie nodded.
"WHERE?"
He pointed toward his shoe.
Maxwell frowned.
"What does that mean?"
Audrey helped Charlie remove his sneaker.
Inside the lining, carefully hidden beneath a strip of fabric, was a tiny brass key.
Maxwell stared.
"Where did you get that?"
Charlie signed.
"MOMMY GAVE IT TO ME."
"When?"
"BEFORE THE BOAT."
Audrey held the key toward the light.
An inscription ran along its edge.
417-B.
Maxwell's breathing changed.
Olivia had hidden something.
Something important enough to entrust to her seven-year-old son before she disappeared.
Raymond examined the key.
"Boss, there's another marking."
He turned it over.
Three letters had been engraved into the metal.
A.B.C.
Audrey froze.
Those were her sister's initials.
Amanda Bennett Cole.
Her full legal name.
Maxwell looked at her.
"Audrey, why would my wife have a key marked with your sister's initials?"
Audrey stared at the brass key.
She had no answer.
Until she remembered the strange photograph Amanda had once shown her.
A photograph taken at a medical fundraiser three years earlier.
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In it, Amanda stood beside Olivia Gallow.
And the two women were holding hands.
