She Found Her Grandmother’s Diary in the Attic — Then Discovered Her Name Among 15 Missing Children
CHAPTER 2
Maya stared at the page until the letters blurred.
Her name.
Her birthday.
A date that existed before she had even been born.
Daniel noticed her expression.
“What is it?”
She turned the diary toward him.
He read the entry.
His face changed immediately.
“This isn’t possible.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
Daniel took out his phone.
“What’s your exact date of birth?”
Maya told him.
He compared it with the diary.
The date beside her name was eleven months earlier.
Daniel sat down.
“Your grandmother knew you were going to be born.”
Maya shook her head.
“That’s not the strangest part.”
She pointed to the bottom of the page.
There was another sentence.
If Maya ever finds this diary, tell her I did not choose her. I chose to save her.
The room became silent.
Maya felt as though the entire life she remembered had suddenly become a story someone else had written.
Her grandmother had raised her.
Protected her.
Loved her.
But apparently, there was something about Maya’s childhood she had never been told.
Daniel carefully turned the page.
A second photograph was attached.
This one showed Evelyn outside Briarwood Children’s Home.
Maya recognized the building from the first photograph.
But something was different.
A police cruiser was parked beside it.
The date was visible.
November 1998.
Three weeks after Emily Harper disappeared.
Daniel zoomed in.
“Look.”
A man stood beside the cruiser.
Maya recognized him immediately.
Sheriff Thomas Hale.
The current sheriff’s father.
Daniel whispered:
“That’s William Hale.”
Maya looked at him.
“What does he have to do with this?”
“Everything, apparently.”
They spent the next several hours searching old newspaper archives.
The Briarwood Children’s Home had officially closed in 2001 after funding problems.
But Daniel found something hidden in a local newspaper.
Several children had been adopted through the facility during the late 1990s.
Their records were sealed.
Maya felt a cold sensation move through her body.
“Fifteen children.”
Daniel nodded.
“Exactly.”
“You’re saying they weren’t kidnapped?”
“Not exactly.”
He looked at the diary.
“They may have been moved.”
“Moved where?”
Daniel didn’t answer.
Because someone knocked on the front door.
Three slow knocks.
Maya and Daniel looked at each other.
Neither moved.
The knocks came again.
Then a man’s voice came from outside.
“Maya?”
She recognized it.
Sheriff Thomas Hale.
Maya opened the door.
Hale stood on the porch.
His eyes moved immediately toward the diary.
“You need to give me that.”
Maya tightened her grip.
“Why?”
His expression hardened.
“Because your grandmother spent thirty years trying to bury what you’re about to uncover.”
Maya stared at him.
“Did my grandmother kidnap those children?”
Hale hesitated.
“No.”
“Then what did she do?”
He looked directly into her eyes.
“She helped some of them disappear.”
Then he walked away.
Maya closed the door.
Daniel whispered:
“That’s not what I expected.”
Maya looked at the diary.
Neither did she.
