My Grandfather Left Me a Diary in an Abandoned Basement — The Last Page Had My Name on It
CHAPTER 12
Maya spent the next week searching for the boy.
His face appeared in no official record.
No hospital document.
No school registration.
Nothing.
Then Daniel discovered something hidden in the diary’s binding.
A birth certificate.
The name was:
Ethan Bennett.
Maya stared.
“Bennett?”
Daniel nodded.
“Your brother.”
She laughed nervously.
“I don’t have a brother.”
“Apparently you did.”
The certificate listed Samuel as the guardian.
The mother’s name was blank.
The father’s name was David Bennett.
Maya’s hands trembled.
Her father had another child.
Why?
Then they found the answer.
Ethan had been born after Maya.
And he had been taken immediately.
Not kidnapped.
Officially transferred.
The documents were signed by a medical facility connected to Project Haven.
Maya’s mother had discovered the truth.
She had tried to recover Ethan.
That was why she disappeared.
But Samuel had hidden him.
To keep him alive.
Maya stared at the final note.
Ethan is safe.
Then beneath it:
But he doesn’t know who he is.
Daniel looked at her.
“Where would Samuel send him?”
Maya thought about her grandfather.
He trusted very few people.
There was one name.
A retired pastor in Ohio.
Maya remembered visiting him once as a child.
They drove there the next morning.
The old pastor opened the door.
When he saw Maya, he immediately began to cry.
“You finally came.”
Maya froze.
“You know me?”
“I knew you would come eventually.”
“Where is Ethan?”
The pastor looked behind her.
“Did your mother come with you?”
“No.”
He sighed.
“Then you shouldn’t have come alone.”
Maya’s heart dropped.
“Why?”
The pastor handed her an envelope.
Inside was a recent photograph.
A young man stood beside a truck.
Twenty-seven years old.
Dark hair.
A small scar above his eyebrow.
He looked exactly like Maya’s father.
On the back:
Ethan Bennett — alive.
Then another sentence.
He has been looking for you.
