Stolen Dreams (16 page)

The corridor was narrow and damp, but the ground was dry and
the walls seemed to be solid.
 
The
pathway sloped slightly, giving Mary the impression they must be traveling
under the small, mounded, flower gardens that surrounded the convent.
 

“How far did you get?” Mary asked as they passed the five
minute mark and the path turned towards the right.

“I had just turned here when Mike disappeared,” Ian said.

Mary stopped, looked back and shook her head.
 
They had been walking at a good pace for those
five minutes, so they had traveled nearly a third of a mile. “Wow, that was
quite a run,” she said.

“It was my effort at the six-minute mile,” he replied with a
shrug. “It’s amazing how fast you can run when you think someone’s life is in
danger.”

“Well, thank you,” she said. “I really appreciate the
effort.”

“No problem,” Ian replied with a wink. “I’m sure you’d do
the same for me.”

She looked down at her belly and shook her head. “Well, I’d
sure try,” she said ruefully. “But I can guarantee it wouldn’t be a six-minute
mile.”

Ian chuckled softly. “That’s alright, darling,” he said.
“Just send Mike on ahead of you.”

Mike laughed. “Yeah, I think I can move a little faster than
Mary these days.”

The path started to incline slightly, and in a few minutes
they were standing in front of another large, wooden door that resembled the
one on the outside of the crypt.
 
Mary
studied the door for a moment. “I would guess this opens up in the cellars
somewhere,” she whispered. “But it would be just my luck if it opened up in the
middle of the cafeteria.”

“Or worse yet,” Mike inserted, “the women’s locker room.”

Ian snickered. “Well, let’s just open the door slowly and
let Mary peek inside first,” he suggested.
“Just in case.”

As Mary placed her hand on the doorknob, Sister Maria
appeared next to her, causing Mary to gasp and jump back.

“My dear, whatever is wrong?” Sister Maria asked anxiously.

“You just startled me, Sister,” Mary stuttered once she
realized the ghost standing in front of her was not a demon.

“Oh, well, I do apologize,” the sister replied. “I’ve been
waiting for you to get here, in order to guide you.
 
But it took you much longer than I would have
thought.”

“We ran into some unexpected troubles,” Mike said. “But
we’re anxious to go inside.”

Sister Maria nodded. “Well, of course you are,” she agreed.
“Let me take a quick look.”

The ghost stuck her upper torso through the large door and
quickly pulled it back. “The, um, how do you say it?” she asked and then smiled
in remembrance. “I have it. The coast is clear.”

“Exactly,” Ian replied. “And is the door unlocked?”

“Oh, well, I don’t know,” she said, slightly flummoxed. “We
never used to close it.”

Mary put her hand back on the doorknob, turned it and
pulled.
 
The door groaned slightly, but
it opened and spilled dim light into the corridor.

“Well, how clever,” Sister Maria said, clapping her hands in
delight. “Now we can find the paperwork.”

She glided out of the corridor and into a lower basement
with gray painted floors, limestone walls, and low hanging pipes and ductwork
wrapped in puffy insulation.
 
“Watch your
head,” she cautioned as Mike walked through a fairly large pipe at forehead
level.

“That would have hurt,” Mike said, turning around and
looking at the heavy piece of iron.

“At least it wouldn’t have damaged anything important,” Ian
quipped, but nearly walked into a low hanging pipe himself.

“Karma,” Mike said, nodding knowingly.

They followed Sister Maria around a large boiler that looked
like a giant octopus with its tentacle ductwork disappearing into the ceiling,
and then past a series of small, storage rooms made from chicken wire and
two-by-fours.

“This climate isn’t good for storing records,” Ian
commented, walking around a puddle on the floor. “Things could easily be
damaged by mold or water.”

“I don’t think they are as concerned as we are about the
records we’re looking for,” Mary said.

They turned down a narrow hallway lined on each side with
the storage areas, and Sister Maria stopped and turned to them. “I just
realized that the doors have padlocks on them,” she said. “We won’t be able to
get in and check the records after all.”

Mary smiled and pulled out a small, cloth case and
unwrapped
it, displaying a number of thin, metal-topped
tools used to pick locks. “I think we can take care of that problem, Sister,”
she said confidently.

“And yet, you don’t have a hankie in your pocket,” Ian
grumbled, shaking his head.

“Priorities,” Mary replied with a grin.

They followed Sister Maria a few more yards before she
stopped in front of one of the units. “Why, you won’t have to pick the lock
after all,” she said happily. “Someone has left it open for us.”

“Oh, no,” Mary groaned, expecting the worst.
 
She hurried forward and pushed open the
door.
 
The solid line of file boxes had
been disturbed, and several from the middle were missing. Checking the dates on
the boxes before and after the empty space, she realized the ones missing were
during the time Alison would have given birth to her daughter.

“They’ve taken the files,” she said. “We have to find them.”

“I have a very bad feeling about this,” Sister Maria said.
“And I think you should follow me first, before we look upstairs.”

She quickly glided farther down the narrow hall and turned
to the left.
 
A large, furnace-like
machine stood in the far corner, its hatched door slightly open to reveal the
fire blazing inside.

“An incinerator?”
Mary asked.
 

Ian dashed ahead and knocked the door farther open.
 
Even from the distance of several feet away,
Mary could see the black, curled edges of burning file folders.
 
“They destroyed them,” she said, tears
burning her eyes. “They destroyed them.”

“Well, perhaps they’re burning other files,” Sister Maria
suggested helpfully.

Ian reached back behind the iron monstrosity and pulled out
an empty file box. “No, they were burning the files we needed,” he said. “And
there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it.”

Mary leaned back against a wall and let out the breath she’d
been holding. “I don’t understand why they weren’t willing to help,” she said,
trying to hold back her disappointment and sadness. “All they had to do was
tell us who adopted her.
 
And now Alison
will never know.”

“Oh, don’t worry, dear,” Sister Maria consoled her. “God has
a wonderful way of working things out. You just have to have faith.”

Mary sighed deeply. “Thank you, Sister Maria,” she said.
“But I think those words are coming a little late for Alison.”

The door burst open and Clarissa, Maggie and Andy dashed
inside. “We could smell cookies baking as soon as we stepped off the bus,”
Clarissa said, leading the other two towards the kitchen. “And we followed our
noses and they led us home.”

Mary smiled and kissed Clarissa’s forehead. “Well, welcome
home,” she said, and then she reached back on the counter and moved the plate
of oatmeal cookies towards the children. “How was school?”

Three eager hands claimed cookies, and each took a bite
before answering Mary’s question.

“Great,” Clarissa said while chewing. “We had a fire drill,
so we didn’t have to do math.”

Maggie nodded. “Yeah, and we had to go outside and not even
get our coats,” she added. “Like there was a real fire. Nancy got so upset she
actually threw up in the bushes.”

“Wow, she must have been very upset,” Ian commented,
reaching over and nabbing a cookie for
himself
.

Andy shook his head. “Nah, Nancy throws up about anything,”
he explained, taking another bite of his cookie. “Her brother told me that she
has a nervous stomach. She even pukes when they go for a long car ride.”

“Poor Nancy,” Ian replied sympathetically, but then he
turned to Mary and whispered. “Nancy’s going to be a lot of fun on a date when
she gets older.”

Mary smiled at Ian’s joke, but her heart wasn’t really in
it. “Yeah, real fun,” she replied, trying to lighten her own mood.

“Hey kids, how would you like some chocolate milk to go with
those cookies?” Ian suggested.
 
A rousing
chorus of affirmation to his suggestion caused him to smile before he added,
“Okay, you go and sit down at the table and I’ll bring them to you.”

“Can we have more cookies, too?” Andy asked.

“Well, here’s the deal,” he said, lowering his voice
conspiratorially. “Mary’s a mom, and moms have those ‘not before dinner’ rules.
But if we can talk her into going upstairs and resting for a wee bit, I’m sure
we’ll be able to have more.”

Andy looked over at Mary. “You do look tired,” he said
earnestly. “I think you should go take a nap. My mom says adults like naps but
never get to take them.”

Clarissa nodded. “You should nap,” she agreed. “And we’ll be
really good and quiet.”

Mary was torn.
 
She
really wanted to be alone for just a little bit and give in to the emotions
that were plaguing her, but Clarissa needed help with her homework, the dishes
needed to be done and…

“I’ll help Clarissa with her homework,” Ian said, reading
her mind. “I’m a PhD, so I think I might be able to handle it.”

“But—” she began.

“Maggie and I can do the dishes,” Clarissa volunteered.
“We’re supposed to be doing good deeds for a class project, so this will count
like I’m doing homework.”

“And Bradley will be home any minute now,” Ian reminded her.
“So, I won’t be able to corrupt their young minds for too long.”

Looking around the room at all the eager faces that wanted
to get rid of her, she laughed. “Thank you,” she said. “I would love to take a
nap.”

She had barely reached the staircase when she heard Andy
say, “Can I have four more cookies ‘cause I’m a growing kid?”

She glanced over her shoulder and caught Ian’s glance. He
smiled at her,
then
nodded with his head in the
direction of the stairs. “Go and rest,” he mouthed and then turned his
attention to the children. “Well, four more cookies might make you have the
same reaction as Nancy to the fire drill, and I’ve got to say I don’t look
forward to you spewing cookies and chocolate milk all over the kitchen.”

“Gross,” said Maggie and Clarissa, screwing up their faces
in identical masks of disgust.

“I never throw up,” Andy replied, defending his gastronomical
abilities.

“Uh, uh,” his sister replied eagerly. “You threw up all over
the car when we went on vacation.”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

Mary closed the door to her bedroom, and the argument
disappeared.
 
Leaning against the door,
she smiled wistfully. She was grateful that Ian had given her a break and she
had no doubt that Ian had the necessary diplomatic skills to not only solve the
argument but also leave everyone content and laughing in the end.

“Your meddling destroyed any chance to find out about the
placement of that child.”

Mary spun around to see Sister Bernadette standing in her
bedroom.

“No,” Mary shook her head, terrified because the nun’s words
echoed the thoughts in her head. “I had no idea she would burn the records.”

“You had to have the last word,” Sister Bernadette
criticized as she glided towards Mary.
“Had to threaten her
before you drove away.
What did you think she would do?”

“I didn’t think—” Mary began.

“That’s correct,” Sister Bernadette said in a scathing voice
just before she faded away. “You didn’t think.”

 
The bathroom door was
slightly ajar, and he could hear water running in the sink when Bradley entered
the bedroom ten minutes later.
 
He
checked the bed first, to make sure Mary hadn’t fallen asleep.
 
But the bed was empty.
 
He walked over to the bathroom. “Mary?” he
called softly.

He pushed open the door, and his heart broke when he saw her
huddled on the floor next to the shower, sobbing into a bath towel. “Oh, Mary,”
he said, sitting down next to her and slipping his arms around her. “How bad is
it?”

She looked up at him, her eyes red and watery and her face
splotched from crying. “It’s so bad,” she sobbed. “I lost my temper and the
records were burned. And now Alison will never pass over.”

Reaching up, he turned off the water. “And you were running
the water because…” he asked.

“So Clarissa wouldn’t hear me cry and get worried,” she
hiccupped.

He kissed the top of her head and slowly rubbed her back.
“Of course.
Okay, help me to understand,” he said softly.
“How did you lose your temper?”

“I told the Mother Superior that nuns can be put in jail for
impeding an investigation,” Mary said.

“Well, that’s true,” Bradley replied.

“But she still burnt the birth records,” Mary cried, her
tears returning. “She just put them in the incinerator and destroyed them.”

“Do you have proof?” he asked.

She nodded against his chest. “Before we left, Ian fished
some of the less charred pieces out of the incinerator and kept them,” she
said. “But what’s that going to do?”

“Well, I’ve been doing a little research myself,” he said.
“And there is something called the Children Act of 1975, which states that
adoption records have to be kept for at least seventy-five years.”

Mary sat up and wiped the tears from her face. “But Alison
said that her daughter would have only been 62 years old,” Mary said. “So she
would have fallen into those requirements.”

Bradley nodded. “And then there was the Adoption and
Children Act in 2002 that requires that records be kept for one hundred years.”

“So, really, she was breaking the law by destroying those
records?” Mary asked.

“Yes, and it seems that something ought to be done quickly
in order to prevent her from destroying any more files,” he said, pulling out
his phone.

“Who are you calling?” she asked.

“A friend of mine who is a sheriff in that county,” Bradley
replied, giving Mary another gentle kiss as he entered the numbers on his
phone. “I’ll see if he can swing by and put the fear of God into her, if you’ll
forgive the pun.”

She smiled up at him. “Thank you,” she sniffled. “At least
others will be able to find their records.”
 
She took a deep, unsteady breath and stopped talking when Bradley
greeted the sheriff on the phone. “But that doesn’t help Alison,” she whispered
to herself.

She listened to the conversation as Bradley relayed the
information to the sheriff, and she felt a little vindicated when he received
the sheriff’s promise that he would call a judge he knew to get a warrant so
they could save some of the evidence.
 
Mary hoped that at least the records from other years would still be
down in the storage unit, because there was little chance of much else
surviving.

“Thank you,” she repeated when he got off the phone. “You’re
saving a lot of future heartache.”

“But what about current heartache?” he asked her, looking
into her eyes.

She shrugged. “I guess I’ve never had a situation like this
when I’ve failed completely,” she admitted.

“I don’t think you’ve failed completely,” Bradley said. “As
far as you know, they could have had plans to destroy all those records before
you even arrived at the scene.
 
They just
started with those because you showed up.
 
So, you actually accomplished a lot by saving the other records.”

“But not for Alison,” she said.

“Well, maybe all Alison needs is to know that everything’s
been done and there’s nothing else she can do,” Bradley said. “Perhaps once she
realizes that her daughter really is lost to her, she can move on.”

“Well, that’s a crappy outcome,” she replied.

He leaned over and hugged her. “Maybe there’s another
outcome that you just haven’t come up with yet,” he suggested.

“Yeah, maybe,” she grumbled. “But I’m not counting on it.”