Chapter 4 - Confronting the Ghost
To get the authorization to search the restricted archives, the district attorney needed a sworn deposition from me detailing everything I could remember about Martin’s behavior regarding my identity. But to do that, I had to do the one thing I dreaded most: look Martin Ellison in the eye.
The visitation room at the federal detention center was cold and reeked of industrial disinfectant. I sat behind a thick pane of plexiglass, my hands trembling in my lap.
When the heavy steel door opened, Martin walked in. He wasn't wearing his pressed police uniform or his favorite leather jacket. He wore a bright orange jumpsuit, his wrists shackled to a chain around his waist. He looked older, deflated, but as he sat down and picked up the phone, his eyes still held that sharp, calculating intensity I had known my entire life.
I slowly picked up my receiver.
"Claire," he said, his voice completely normal, as if we were sitting at the kitchen table back home. "Thank God you're here. You need to tell these people they've got it all wrong. I did what I had to do to give you a life."
"My name is Natalie," I said, my voice steady despite the roaring in my ears.
Martin’s expression hardened just a fraction. "Don't say that. I changed your diapers. I taught you how to ride a bike. I paid for your college. That woman, Laura, she died in that car, Claire. If I hadn't taken you, you would have gone into a system that would have chewed you up and spit you out. I saved you."
"You didn't save me, Martin. You stole me," I whispered, the word Dad dissolving completely from my vocabulary. "My grandparents were looking for me. My uncle was looking for me. I had a family that loved me, and you murdered my identity so you could fill a void in your own life."
"They wouldn't have known how to raise you!" he snapped, leaning closer to the glass, his breath fogging the surface. "Look at what I gave you! A beautiful home, safety, a future! You think a couple of grieving farm folks from the valley could have given you what I did?"
The arrogance in his voice was sickening. He didn't feel an ounce of remorse. To him, I was a prize he had won, a trophy of his own cleverness.
"Where is the clerk's ledger, Martin?" I asked directly, ignoring his justifications.
He let out a dry, harsh chuckle. "You think you're a detective now? Just like your old man? Let me tell you something, Claire. That ledger doesn't exist. And even if it did, it’s buried so deep under institutional red tape that your little FBI friends will never touch it. If you testify against me, you ruin the only family you've ever known. You ruin your mother's memory."
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"My mother is dead," I said, looking him dead in the eye. "Both of them are. And you're the reason why."
I slammed the receiver down on the hook, stood up, and walked out of the room without looking back. As the heavy steel doors banged shut behind me, the last lingering shards of childhood affection I held for the man vanished. He wasn't a father. He was a captor who had worn a mask for twenty-three years.
