Chapter 29 Project Moonlight
Project Moonlight
As I traced the letters, something thin slipped out from behind the envelope and floated to the floor.
Aiden bent to pick it up. “Look, you dropped…” He stopped mid-sentence, eyes narrowing as he turned it over.
It was a folded scrap of paper, no larger than his palm. In careful block letters, an address had been written:
Northbrook Medical Clinic.
12 County Road West, Crossroad Fields,
Oakville
The writing was precise and deliberate.
Aiden handed it to me, his gaze searching mine. “You know this place?”
I shook my head slowly, feeling the air shift in the room. “No. But maybe they knew something… or someone there knew them.”
My fingers returned to the envelope, its weight suddenly heavier. Whatever was inside wasn’t just about my grandparents; it was connected to this address. To a clinic I’d never heard of.
Aiden leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed but jaw tense. “Open it, Josie.”
I didn’t move. I just stared at the faded seal, knowing that once I broke it, there was no going back.
My thumb worried the edge of the seal until it gave with a dry, papery tear. The sound was too loud in the stillness of the room.
Inside was a single sheet of stationery, the handwriting looping and elegant, like someone who’d learned to write before computers existed. The ink had faded to a soft brown, but every word was still legible.
I cleared my throat, reading aloud, partly because my voice needed to fill the silence, partly because I wanted Aiden to help me figure out whatever it said.
My dearest Josie,
There are no words to tell you how sorry I am for everything you’ve endured.
I have carried the weight of your pain like a stone in my chest, knowing that some part of it began here, with us.
Your grandfather was not an innocent man in all this.
He chose to be involved in what they called “Project Moonlight,” believing it would protect our family… but it only doomed us.
I did not have the strength to stop him. I told myself I stayed to keep watch, to shield you from the worst of it, but the truth is, I was afraid. Afraid of losing him. Afraid of what they would do if I left.
I have long suspected that the same people behind that project are the reason your parents are gone. I cannot prove it, but I have seen enough to know it was no accident.
I wish I had been braver. I wish I had told you sooner. Please, forgive me for the silence, and know that I have loved you every day of your life.
Memaw
My voice broke on the last line. The words blurred as my eyes burned, the weight of them pressing down like a hand on my chest.
Aiden didn’t say anything right away. He just stood there, watching me, his jaw tight like he was holding back questions he knew I couldn’t answer yet.
The letter slipped from my fingers onto the floor, the soft rustle sounding louder than it should have.
I stared at it like it might rearrange its words if I looked long enough.
Your grandfather was not an innocent man.
The phrase looped over and over in my head, drowning out the creak of the farmhouse walls and the ticking of the old clock above the doorway.
My chest tightened, my breath turning shallow and mechanical. Aiden stepped closer, slow, careful, like he was approaching something fragile. “Josie…”
“My parents,” I choked out, my throat raw. “They didn’t just…” My voice cracked. “They didn’t just die. Someone took them from me. And she… she let me grow up without knowing.”
Aiden’s hand came to rest on my shoulder, not heavy, not forcing, just there. Steady. “You know now,” he said, his tone low but unyielding. “And we’ll find out the rest. Together.”
I let out a shaky laugh that wasn’t really a laugh. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It isn’t simple,” he said, meeting my gaze. “But it’s real. And right now, you need to stay here with me. In this moment. Not in the past. Not in that house in your head where you’re orphaned and alone. Right here.”
I swallowed hard, focusing on the warmth of his hand. The room steadied a little. I nodded, even though my heart still felt like it was running a marathon.
The letter lay between us, its neat handwriting looking far too polite for the damage it carried.
I wasn’t ready to read it again. But I was ready to start asking questions.
Aiden’s gaze drifted from me to the floor, where the folded scrap of paper with the clinic’s address still sat like a quiet challenge.
I followed his line of sight. “That fell out of the envelope before I opened it,” I said, my voice still a little hoarse. “I thought it was nothing. Just… something old.”
“Things don’t fall out of letters like that by accident,” he replied, picking it up and scanning the handwriting. “It’s in the same ink as the envelope. She wanted you to find it.”
I hesitated. “If she didn’t mention it in the letter…”
“Then maybe she couldn’t,” Aiden said. “Or she didn’t want it in writing.”
The thought lodged in my mind like a splinter.
My grandmother had been willing to admit her husband’s guilt and hint at murder in a letter, but not this?
I stared at the neat little line of numbers and the faded clinic name. “Crossroad Fields…” I murmured. “That’s a twenty-minute drive from here.”
Aiden relaxed his posture, studying me with a blend of concern and understanding. “We don’t have to go today.”
I shook my head firmly, the resolve hardening in my chest. “No. If I wait, I’ll start second-guessing myself. I’ll talk myself out of it. I need to know what this place has to do with her… with everything.”
His gaze softened, the tension easing slightly as he nodded in acknowledgment.
“Then we’ll go tomorrow. But first, let’s check in with Emily and see how Mateo is doing.
You need more than just the toast from this morning; your body needs fuel.
And we both need rest. A good night’s sleep will clear your mind. ”
“Yeah,” I murmured, the weight of his words settling over me like a comforting blanket.
I pushed myself up, the floorboards creaking beneath my feet. The farmhouse felt different now, as if the very air had thickened, shadows creeping deeper into the corners.
I took one last glance at the letter before leaving the room. The words hadn’t changed. They never would. But maybe, just maybe, the answers waiting at that clinic would.
* * *
The next morning at Emily’s was slow and quiet.
Sunlight filtered through gauzy curtains, painting soft gold across the worn wooden floors.
Somewhere in the kitchen, the faint clink of dishes told me Emily was up early.
Mateo was still asleep in the spare room, his soft breathing a comfort I didn’t want to walk away from, but I knew I had to.
Aiden was already waiting by the door when I came out, coffee in hand. “You sure about this?” he asked.
“No,” I admitted, sliding my hoodie on. “But I’m going anyway.”
Before we left, I found Emily in the kitchen, rinsing out coffee cups.
“Hey,” I said, keeping my voice low, “Aiden and I need to check something out this morning. Mateo’s still asleep… can you keep an eye on him for a few hours?”
Emily dried her hands on a dish towel, giving me a curious look. “Of course. You don’t have to ask. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I lied quickly. “Just… something I need to follow up on.”
She studied me for a moment but didn’t press. “Alright. When he wakes up, I’ll get him some breakfast. He can help me feed the chickens.”
I thanked her quietly and followed Aiden out to the SUV.
The drive to the clinic took us along the cracked, narrow backroads skirting Oakville’s far edge.
The farther we went, the denser the trees grew, branches curling over the road like skeletal hands.
The GPS on Aiden’s phone cut out halfway there, leaving us to follow the address scrawled on that piece of paper.
When we finally found it, the place didn’t even look like a clinic anymore.
The white siding had long since yellowed to the color of old teeth, and ivy had claimed most of the walls.
One of the front windows was shattered, the glass glittering in the weeds.
The wooden sign by the door was so faded, I had to squint to make out the word Medical.
Inside the one-floor building, the air carried a faint tang of chemicals that didn’t belong in a place this abandoned. Rusted gurneys sat crooked in the hallways, frozen in time.
We moved deeper into the building, our footsteps muffled by the thick layer of dust, disturbed only by the faint track of something, animal or human, I couldn’t tell.
As we passed a row of rooms, flashes hit me. A bright light overhead. Cold metal against my skin. A hand pinning me down. Voices speaking in a language I didn’t know, but my body remembered the fear.
I stumbled, grabbing the doorframe for balance.
“Josie.” Aiden’s hand was on my arm instantly, steady and warm. “We should get out of here.”
“No.” My voice was barely above a whisper. “Not yet.”
At the far end of the hallway, a supply closet stood half-open. Something about it didn’t feel right. Aiden pushed the door wider, and there it was.
A trapdoor on the floor.
Aiden crouched, brushing away a layer of dust to find a handle. He tugged at it, and the door groaned open, revealing a narrow stairwell plunging into darkness. The smell hit me first, sterile and chemical, too fresh for a place abandoned this long.
We exchanged a look. No words. Then we went down.
The basement wasn’t just a storage room.
It was a lab.
Metal tables lined the walls. Cabinets overflowed with vials and medical instruments. Stacks of yellowed files leaned against steel shelves, their labels in blocky black print that made my skin crawl.
I didn’t remember this place.
But my body did.
Aiden crossed to one of the shelves, his eyes scanning the rows of files. “These go back decades,” he muttered, fingertips brushing along the spines. “Different dates… different subjects.”
Something about the word “subjects” made my stomach twist.