Chapter 8 - Victoria tells me Hannah’s disappearance
I met Victoria at Elena’s office.
Neutral room.
No chapel.
No pearls.
She brought a binder.
I immediately hated it.
She noticed.
“I can leave this closed.”
“Please.”
She did.
Then told me.
Twenty-two years earlier, Victoria was twenty-six.
Jonathan was thirty-one.
Hannah was born after three years of infertility treatment.
Normal delivery.
Three days later, an electrical panel failed in a service corridor at St. Catherine’s.
Smoke entered part of the maternity wing.
Staff moved mothers and infants temporarily.
Chaos.
Not cinematic flames.
Alarms.
Smoke doors.
Elevators shut down.
Staff running.
A nurse told Victoria that Hannah had been moved to a temporary nursery area.
Twenty-three minutes later, they could not find her.
At first everyone assumed paperwork error.
Then bassinet error.
Then wrong floor.
By the time police locked down exits, too much time had passed.
One witness remembered a woman in hospital scrubs carrying a bundled infant toward a stairwell.
Another remembered nothing.
Security cameras in that wing were limited in 2004.
One parking-lot camera captured a sedan leaving during the evacuation.
Plate unreadable.
The investigation widened.
No ransom.
No body.
No confirmed sighting.
Victoria said:
“For two years I believed every phone call would be someone returning her.”
“What about later?”
“I learned to survive between calls.”
Jonathan and Victoria’s marriage almost ended.
Then they became foster parents.
Not as replacement.
At least that was the goal.
Ethan entered.
Stayed.
Was adopted.
I asked:
“Did Marian work at St. Catherine’s?”
Victoria’s face tightened.
May you like
“No one by that name appeared in the investigation.”
Not yet.
