Chapter 4 - The Lullaby Meredith Left Behind
Meredith regained consciousness late that evening. Although weak and disoriented, she asked for her children before anything else.
When Caleb entered her room, she turned her face away.
“You must hate me.”
He pulled a chair beside the bed.
“I hated what I thought you had done. That isn’t the same thing.”
For years, Meredith explained, she had worked as a records coordinator for Havenbridge, believing the organization helped struggling families find safe temporary care. Gradually, she noticed altered names, sealed payments, and guardianship orders approved with impossible speed.
When she questioned Harrison Creed, he showed her photographs of Noah outside school and warned her that Caleb could also become a target. From that moment forward, Meredith built a wall of lies around everyone she loved. The false consulting job, the unexplained absences, even several hostile custody filings had been designed to make Caleb keep his distance.
“I thought if you resented me, you would stop asking questions,” she said. “I never realized Noah and Clara would believe you had stopped loving them.”
Caleb lowered his head.
“I should have listened when you tried to tell me something was wrong.”
“And I should have trusted you enough to tell you the truth.”
Rebecca entered with troubling news. The flash drive contained extensive records, but many names had been replaced with codes. Investigators needed the location of Havenbridge’s original archive.
Meredith closed her eyes, trying to remember.
Then Noah, who had been brought to the doorway by a nurse, began humming the lullaby Meredith had sung when Clara was a baby.
“Sleep where the moonlight finds you, beyond the willow door…”
Caleb looked up.
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Willow Door was not merely a line in a song. Years earlier, his architectural firm had evaluated an abandoned records warehouse named Willow Door Archives. Meredith had visited the property with him once.
Rebecca understood immediately.
