Chapter 4 - THE DAUGHTER CALLUM THOUGHT HE HAD BURIED
Callum’s former wife, Leah Voss, had been pregnant when she disappeared six years earlier.
He had never told Penny.
Leah left a note saying she could no longer live with his absences, nightmares, and constant readiness for disaster. Callum had returned from an overseas recovery mission to find her clothes gone, their joint account emptied, and four-year-old Penny sleeping at a neighbor’s house.
Three weeks later, police found Leah’s car abandoned near the Hudson River.
Blood stained the driver’s seat.
Investigators concluded she had been injured and possibly entered the water. No body was recovered.
Callum eventually obtained a legal declaration of abandonment and full custody of Penny.
He never knew Leah had been pregnant.
Julian should not have known Leah existed at all.
Callum entered the bathroom after Maisie unlocked the door.
“How did your father know about another girl?”
Maisie sat inside the empty bathtub, hugging her knees.
“He showed me a picture.”
“What picture?”
“A baby in a hospital crib. He said the baby belonged to Penny’s dad and that nobody wanted her.”
Callum’s face hardened.
“Did he say where she was?”
“He called her Subject V.”
Serena immediately ordered her private investigators to search Victor Hale’s files.
They discovered sealed medical records linked to a maternity clinic in Albany. The clinic had been owned by a Mercer family trust until it closed four years earlier.
A patient using the name Leah Gray gave birth there six years ago.
The infant was identified only as Female Voss.
The discharge records were missing.
Callum sat at Serena’s dining table, staring at the screen.
“I missed it.”
“You had no reason to search a clinic owned through six shell companies,” Serena said.
“I stopped looking for Leah.”
“You raised Penny.”
“I stopped.”
His voice carried the self-condemnation of a man who believed endurance should have made him omniscient.
Serena sat across from him.
“My daughter was hearing threats inside her bedroom for nine months. I slept down the hall.”
“That was not your fault.”
“Then perhaps this wasn’t yours.”
Callum looked at her.
Neither believed the absolution fully.
But each understood why the other needed to hear it.
The next morning, Victor Hale returned to Blackwood Tower and demanded access to his office. Security detained him.
He claimed the hidden camera and custody reports had been planted.
Serena questioned him inside a conference room while federal agents observed.
“Julian is using your legal credentials,” she said.
Victor remained calm.
“I represented both of you during the marriage. Old files circulate.”
“You sent confidential tutor reports to him.”
“My assistant may have copied them in response to discovery requests.”
“The requests did not exist.”
Victor leaned back.
“You are emotional, Serena. That is understandable under the circumstances.”
She recognized the tactic immediately.
He had used it on Maisie too.
“You helped Julian contact my daughter through a hidden speaker.”
“That accusation sounds unstable.”
Serena pressed a button.
Maisie’s drawing appeared on the wall monitor beside the device recovered from the book.
Victor’s expression shifted.
“You manipulated an eight-year-old to control her shares.”
“I protected the company from a founder whose maternal guilt has begun corrupting corporate judgment.”
There it was.
Not a confession, but a belief.
Victor thought Blackwood Systems belonged to men capable of protecting it from the woman who built it.
Before federal agents could arrest him, every screen in the conference room activated.
Julian appeared by video.
“Victor, you always talk too much.”
A red light flashed beneath the conference table.
Callum saw it first.
“Down!”
He drove Serena behind the steel credenza as an explosive charge shattered the windows.
Sprinklers flooded the room. Victor fell beneath broken glass. Federal agents pulled him from the smoke.
Julian had attempted to kill his own conspirator.
Victor survived with severe injuries.
Fear made him cooperative.
He admitted helping Julian install the devices and obtain tutor reports. In exchange for control of Maisie’s voting trust, Julian had promised him the position of chief executive after Serena’s removal.
Victor also confirmed that Leah Voss had approached Julian five years earlier.
“She wanted money,” Victor said. “She said Callum Voss was searching for her.”
“Where is she now?” Callum demanded.
“I don’t know.”
“And the child?”
Victor’s eyes moved away.
Julian had used the unnamed child as leverage over Leah. She assisted in gathering information about Callum until she attempted to take the baby and flee.
After that, both vanished.
A photograph recovered from Victor’s phone showed Leah leaving a private psychiatric facility eighteen months earlier.
She held the hand of a five-year-old girl with Penny’s dark hair.
The facility stood in Connecticut and received funding from Mercer Health Holdings.
Serena arranged a federal welfare check.
The building was empty.
Patient records had been burned.
Callum searched the rooms personally.
In a child’s bedroom, he found drawings of mountains and rescue helicopters. One showed a broad-shouldered man holding hands with two girls.
Beneath it, a child had written:
DADDY DOESN’T KNOW ME YET.
Penny saw the drawing when Callum returned to the penthouse.
He told her the truth.
She listened without interrupting.
When he finished, she asked, “Do I have a sister?”
“I believe so.”
“Did Mom take her?”
“I don’t know what happened.”
“Is Mom alive?”
“I don’t know.”
Penny stared at the mechanical bird Maisie had repaired.
“Why didn’t you tell me Mom was pregnant?”
“I didn’t know.”
She nodded, then began crying.
Callum reached for her.
Penny stepped back.
“You’re supposed to know.”
The words wounded him more than anger could.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You’re right.”
He sat on the floor.
“I don’t know where your mother is. I don’t know your sister’s name. I don’t know why Julian has information about them. But I am going to search, and I will tell you everything I find.”
Penny eventually sat beside him.
Maisie approached carrying the repaired bird.
“Your sister likes mountains,” she said.
Penny wiped her face.
“Apparently.”
“We can use the drawings to identify where she was.”
Callum examined them.
One picture showed a distinctive suspension bridge beside a building with a copper roof. Another included a mile marker.
Maisie compared the numbers to Connecticut highway maps.
The location matched a former Mercer rehabilitation property near New Canaan.
Callum, Serena, and federal agents traveled there that night.
The supposedly abandoned building had heat and electricity.
They entered through the rear.
A woman screamed from the second floor.
Callum reached the room first.
Leah stood behind a barricaded door, thin and terrified.
Beside her was a six-year-old girl.
The child looked at Callum’s face.
Then she whispered, “Are you the mountain man?”
May you like
Before he could answer, a gunshot struck the doorframe.
Julian’s men were already inside the building.
