THE SEVENTH CHILD WAS NEVER REPORTED MISSING
Chapter 14
Police vehicles surrounded the hospital.
Federal agents arrived.
News helicopters appeared overhead.
The evidence had been released automatically.
Every file.
Every name.
Every photograph.
The entire Project Echo operation was now public.
People who had hidden behind respectable positions were suddenly exposed.
Doctors.
Judges.
Law enforcement officers.
Businessmen.
Politicians.
But there was one final problem.
The six missing children were still somewhere across America.
Sarah found their locations.
One in Ohio.
One in Virginia.
One in Kentucky.
One in Tennessee.
One in Michigan.
One in Illinois.
Within weeks, they were found.
Alive.
Frightened.
But alive.
Families were reunited.
The story became national news.
Congress demanded investigations.
Red Creek became a symbol of one of the largest child-abduction scandals in modern American history.
And Sarah?
She never spoke publicly about her father.
She simply said:
“Sometimes justice begins when someone is brave enough to question the people everyone else trusts.”
Ethan left the department.
Noah returned home.
For the first time in years, seven bedrooms across America had children sleeping in them again.
But Ethan couldn’t forget one thing.
The photograph containing thirty-two children.
Twenty-five were missing.
Seven had been found.
Where were the other twenty-five?
The official records said they were dead.
No bodies had ever been recovered.
Then, three months later, Ethan received an anonymous package.
Inside was a photograph.
Twenty-five children stood together.
Older now.
Alive.
Behind them was a building Ethan had never seen before.
On the back was one sentence:
THE SEVEN WERE ONLY THE BEGINNING.
