Chapter 10 - The Woman Who Was Never Supposed to Exist
The forensic team finally reconstructed part of the deleted PRESTON folder.
Most files remained corrupted.
One survived almost intact.
A scanned birth certificate.
Name:
Claire Evelyn Hart.
Date of birth:
March 18, 1987.
Parents:
Unknown.
Adriana frowned.
"Evelyn Hart never had children."
Elena continued reading.
Adoptive guardian:
Margaret Ellis.
Everyone froze.
"My mother adopted someone?"
Cho enlarged the page.
Several lines had been deliberately redacted.
Then another recovered document appeared.
School enrollment.
Student:
Claire Hart.
Emergency contact:
Margaret Ellis.
Guardian relationship:
Aunt.
Not mother.
Adriana searched every family photograph she owned.
Nothing.
No Claire.
No teenage girl living with them.
"It doesn't make sense."
Cho recovered another image.
Graduation photograph.
A young woman smiled beside Margaret.
Her face looked strangely familiar.
Elena whispered,
"She looks like..."
Adriana finished the sentence.
"...me."
Not identical.
But close enough to be mistaken from a distance.
Same eyes.
Same smile.
Same chin.
Cho recovered one final fragment.
A handwritten note from Margaret.
If anything happens to me, Claire must never meet Adriana until Sterling Meridian is safe.
Adriana stared.
"Who is Claire?"
Nobody answered.
Cho opened the final partially restored document.
A driver-license application.
Applicant:
Claire Evelyn Hart.
Address:
1427 West Alder Street.
Apartment 1103.
The same apartment.
The same building.
The same room.
Adriana's pulse quickened.
"My mother wasn't protecting documents."
She looked toward Elena.
"She was protecting someone."
Before anyone could respond, Pike rushed into the room holding a printed report.
"We found Serena."
Adriana stood immediately.
"Is she alive?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
Pike's expression remained serious.
"She escaped."
Relief flooded Adriana.
Only for a second.
Pike placed a hospital intake form on the table.
"Before losing consciousness, she gave one statement."
"What did she say?"
Pike looked directly at Adriana.
"She said the people holding her weren't working for Marcus."
Silence.
Elena frowned.
"Then who?"
Pike continued.
"She repeated one name several times."
He slid the report across the table.
Adriana read it.
CHARLES ROWE.
She looked up slowly.
"The man in the airplane photograph."
Pike nodded.
"But that's not the strangest part."
"What is?"
He handed her another page.
Security footage from a toll station north of Chicago.
Timestamp:
Three hours earlier.
A black SUV.
Driver identified as Charles Rowe.
Passenger identified as Serena Collins.
Back seat...
Another woman.
Gray-blond hair.
Approximately sixty years old.
Adriana's breathing stopped.
"That's impossible."
Pike said quietly,
"We thought so too."
He enlarged the still image.
The woman's face became clearer.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakable.
Margaret Ellis.
Alive.
The room fell completely silent.
Elena whispered,
"Your mother's death certificate..."
Adriana couldn't speak.
Pike finished the sentence.
"...may belong to someone else."
The printer behind him suddenly came alive by itself.
A single page emerged.
No sender.
No cover sheet.
Only one sentence.
SHE NEVER DIED.
SHE'S BEEN HIDING FROM THE WRONG MEN.
And beneath it...
Tomorrow.
11:00 a.m.
May you like
North Meridian Cemetery.
Come alone.
