Chapter 9 - The Ghost Address
The afternoon light filtered lazily through the high stained-glass windows of the ballroom, casting long, fractured shadows across the floor where the wedding guests were presumably still sipping champagne, entirely unaware that the bride was currently sitting in the back of a police cruiser. Julian stared down at the screen of the black smartphone, his thumb hovering over the unread email notification that had just popped up.
Noah walked over, stopping a few feet away, his hands shoved deep into his trouser pockets. "What does it say?" Noah asked, his tone cautious, stripped of the earlier hostility. The adrenaline of the confrontation had faded, leaving behind the exhaustion of shared grief.
Julian didn't look up as he tapped the screen. The email contained no text, only a string of coordinates and a street address located in a quiet, older residential district on the east side of the city. Beneath the address was a single attachment: a photograph of a crib draped in a pale pink blanket, sitting beside a sunny window.
"She’s alive," Julian whispered, the words escaping his lips before he could filter them. He looked up at Noah, his dark eyes wide with a sudden, terrifying realization. "The agency didn't just sell her to a random buyer. Elena didn't want the baby to disappear into the system—she placed her somewhere she could watch. Somewhere close."
Noah’s face hardened, the color draining from his cheeks. "What are you talking about? Who has my daughter?"
"According to this address," Julian said, turning the phone so Noah could see the screen, "it’s a private foster residence managed by a woman named Clara Vance. My aunt."
The name dropped like a bomb in the already shattered room. Noah stumbled back a half-step, staring at Julian in sheer disbelief. "Your aunt? You mean your family has been harboring my child the entire time you and Elena were planning this wedding?"
"I didn't know," Julian said fiercely, stepping forward, his voice rising in sudden panic. "I swear to God, Noah, I didn't know anything about this! My aunt Clara runs an independent child advocacy shelter, but she hasn't spoken to me in years because of a family dispute over property. I had no idea Elena had any connection to her."
Lily, still huddled near the floral arrangement, stood up slowly, clutching her smartphone in one hand. "The man on the phone," she piped up, her childish voice cutting through the men's escalating tension. "The man who texted me... he said he was waiting upstairs because he wanted to give the baby back."
Julian and Noah both snapped their heads toward the little girl.
May you like
"What man, Lily?" Julian asked, kneeling down to her eye level, his voice softening into desperate urgency. "Did you see someone else upstairs?"
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