Chapter 9
The municipal archives smelled of old paper, damp plaster, and decades of accumulated dust. Julian sat at a scarred oak table under the harsh glare of a fluorescent light fixture that hummed with a low, irritating frequency. Spread out before him were microfilm reels, ledger books from nineteen-ninety-eight, and a thick folder containing the clinic’s operational logs for the month Lily had been born. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing forearms tense with concentration as he adjusted the focus knob on the ancient microfilm reader.
The screen flickered with grainy black-and-white images of intake forms, birth certificates, and adoption relinquishments. Julian scrolled methodically, his eyes burning from lack of sleep and the relentless glare of the monitor. Most of the entries were mundane—routine checkups, vaccination records, minor administrative notes—until he hit a gap in the sequence. A full three weeks of records had been physically excised from the ledger, the pages sliced out with a razor blade, leaving ragged white edges along the spine.
"Damn it," Julian muttered under his breath, leaning back in his squeaking metal chair and rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"Find something interesting, counselor?"
Julian looked up to see Arthur Vance, the head archivist and a retired county clerk who had worked in the building since the Reagan administration, leaning against the doorway with a steaming mug of black coffee in his hand. Arthur’s white hair was unkempt, and his tweed vest was missing a button, but his eyes were sharp and observant behind thick-rimmed glasses.
"I'm looking for records from the St. Jude Community Outreach Clinic, specifically November of ten years ago," Julian said, gesturing to the mutilated ledger on the table. "It looks like someone took a knife to the primary intake logs."
Arthur walked slowly over to the table, peering down at the open book with a practiced eye. A grimace touched the corners of his mouth. "Ah. St. Jude’s. That place was a mess even before it went under. Run by a private board of trustees who answered to nobody until the state pulled their funding over financial irregularities."
"Who had access to these files besides the director?" Julian asked, standing up to face the older man.
"Corporate lawyers, state auditors, and the occasional desperate parent," Arthur said, taking a sip of his coffee. "Word of advice, Julian—if those pages are missing, they weren't lost in a filing error. Somebody paid to have them removed. Back then, private adoptions through unregulated clinics were a lucrative grey market. Girls came in from out of state, signed papers under duress, and babies vanished into good homes before the ink was dry."
Julian felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. The thought of Lily being part of some illicit transaction, even unwittingly, made his blood run cold. "Was Elena involved in that side of it? She was just a volunteer."
May you like
Arthur gave him a long, measuring look, his expression softening slightly. "Your wife has always been a good woman, Julian. Naive, maybe, with a savior complex that wouldn't quit, but she wasn't running a baby-selling ring. If she took a child from that place, it was because she saw a mother who couldn't protect her baby and decided to play God to save a life. The question is, who was the mother, and are they still looking for her?"
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