Chapter 13 - The Nursery Beneath the Ballroom
The Bel Air mansion contained forty-two rooms.
I had lived there for three years.
I knew the library where Edwin humiliated employees.
The ballroom where Beverly hosted charity galas.
The east wing she claimed had suffered water damage.
The wine cellar where Robert had been imprisoned.
But I had never seen the original architectural plans.
Robert spread them across the dining table.
“The mansion was built in 1928,” he said. “My father added medical rooms beneath the east wing during the 1970s.”
“For what?”
“Private treatment. Our family avoided hospitals.”
Jonathan compared the old plans with current property records.
A section beneath the ballroom had disappeared from later drawings.
The hidden space was larger than the cellar.
It included six bedrooms, a surgical suite, and a service tunnel leading to the neighboring estate.
“Who owns the neighboring property?” Agent Morris asked.
Robert checked the map.
“A holding company.”
Jonathan searched the registration.
The company belonged to Henry Walsh.
The Stanford executive I suspended.
Henry had not simply protected corporate profits.
He owned the exit route.
Federal agents surrounded both properties.
I entered the ballroom with Agent Morris and Robert.
Brutus walked beside us, nose low to the floor.
He stopped near the fireplace and growled.
Robert pressed a carved section of the mantel.
Nothing happened.
I noticed scratches near the floor.
Small scratches.
Like wheels had repeatedly passed over the marble.
A grand piano stood nearby.
Agents moved it.
Beneath it was a steel lift platform.
No visible controls.
Brutus pawed the edge.
Robert found a biometric panel beneath the piano bench.
“It requires a Stanford family scan.”
He pressed his thumb.
ACCESS DENIED.
I tried mine.
The panel turned green.
My biological father had been Daniel Stanford.
The system recognized me.
The lift descended.
Cold air rose from below.
We entered a white underground corridor.
The rooms looked recently used.
Fresh linens.
Medical waste.
Children’s clothing arranged by size.
A wall display showed photographs of infants beside coded family profiles.
The buyers were not choosing children after birth.
They had been choosing them before embryos were created.
Intelligence estimates.
Appearance predictions.
Medical traits.
One profile belonged to Mason.
BUYER REQUEST: MALE, BLOND, HIGH VERBAL CAPACITY, LOW AGGRESSION.
Below it was an evaluation.
PLACEMENT DEFECT: CARDIAC CONDITION DETECTED.
Graham Reed had paid for a fantasy.
Mason became “defective” when his heart required surgery.
I wanted to tear the wall apart.
Agent Morris photographed everything.
Robert opened the surgical suite.
Inside were two empty incubators and a bloodstained blanket.
Someone had moved children hours earlier.
We followed the corridor toward the service tunnel.
A woman cried from behind one locked door.
Agents forced it open.
Annika sat on the floor wearing hospital clothes.
I stopped.
She was supposed to be in witness protection.
“What happened?”
She looked up, terrified.
“They took me from the hospital.”
“Who?”
“Henry.”
She held her side where the bullet wound had reopened.
“He said Beverly needed me to make another statement.”
“Where is Henry now?”
“He left with a baby.”
“Which baby?”
“I don’t know.”
Annika pointed toward a desk.
“He kept calling her Number One.”
On the desk was a feeding chart.
The infant’s name field had been left blank.
The genetic identification number matched one of my missing embryos.
I felt the ground shift.
There was another biological child.
A girl born six months earlier.
She had been hidden beneath my house while Edwin pretended to discuss having our first baby.
“Where did they take her?” I asked.
Annika shook her head.
“I heard Henry say the old mother was waiting.”
“Beverly?”
“No.”
She looked at Robert.
“He said Robert’s first wife.”
Robert’s face emptied.
“My first wife died twenty-eight years ago.”
“What was her name?”
“Eleanor.”
Annika pointed toward the wall monitor.
A transportation file was still open.
Destination:
STANFORD COASTAL ESTATE
CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA
AUTHORIZED GUARDIAN: ELEANOR STANFORD
Robert gripped the desk.
“I saw her body.”
Jonathan looked at him.
“Did Beverly identify it?”
Robert slowly nodded.
Beverly had faked another death.
Robert’s first wife might be alive.
And she had one of my stolen children.
Agent Morris called the Carmel police.
Before she could finish, the underground lights went red.
A warning appeared across every monitor.
BIOLOGICAL CONTAMINATION PROTOCOL ACTIVATED.
Robert looked toward the vents.
“Everyone out.”
Metal doors sealed at both ends of the corridor.
A hissing sound began above us.
Annika covered her mouth.
“What is that?”
Agent Morris checked the emergency panel.
“Chemical sterilization.”
The underground nursery was designed to destroy genetic evidence if discovered.
May you like
And all of us were trapped inside.
👉 Claire found proof of a third stolen child and a woman believed dead for decades, but the nursery’s destruction system activated before anyone could escape.
