Chapter 4 - The Mother Who Had Been Buried
Emily’s mother had died four years earlier.
There had been a funeral.
A closed casket because of the fire.
A death certificate signed by Dr. Adrian Vale.
Emily had stood beside the grave while Mark held her hand and Julian read a passage about peace.
Now Diane Mercer’s voice echoed through the underground center.
“Bring both versions to surgery.”
The other Emily began shaking.
Mark rose slowly.
Emily stared at him. “My mother is alive.”
He looked toward the ceiling camera. “Not the way you remember her.”
“Where is she?”
“Emily, listen to me. There is more happening here than you understand.”
Nora gave a humorless laugh. “That is what men say when the truth makes them look like monsters.”
One of the guards stepped forward. Mark lifted a hand and stopped him.
“I can get you out,” he told Emily.
“You helped put me here.”
“I helped create the life you have.”
“You married me because they told you to.”
“Yes.”
The honesty hurt more than another lie would have.
“But I did not know what they had done to her,” Mark said, nodding toward the woman in the wheelchair. “Not at first.”
The other Emily glared at him. “You knew enough.”
Mark’s jaw tightened. “I was told you died after the crash.”
“You saw me here.”
“Two years later.”
“And you stayed with her.”
Emily felt the word like a blade.
Her.
The imitation.
The replacement.
She refused to let her face change.
“Why fake the illness?” she asked.
Mark looked at the handbag. “Because Julian needed you to move money into an account they controlled. Once the lottery claim cleared, they planned to declare you mentally incompetent. The illness story was designed to make the transfer look voluntary.”
“And the mistress?”
Mark’s silence answered.
The woman in the wheelchair spoke. “Lena.”
Emily looked at her.
“She was my friend,” the woman said. “Before the crash.”
Mark’s face hardened.
Emily remembered the voice on the speakerphone, laughing with him. She had never seen the mistress clearly. Only a silhouette reflected in the bathroom mirror and a hand ending the call.
“Where is Lena now?” Emily asked.
“Above us,” Mark said. “She works for Vale.”
A security door sealed behind the guards.
Then another.
Mark looked around sharply.
The overhead lights changed from white to blue.
Gas hissed through the vents.
Nora covered her mouth. “They’re sedating the floor.”
Mark grabbed an emergency mask from the wall and tossed it to the woman in the wheelchair. Nora pulled her scrub top over her nose. Emily searched the room.
There were only two masks.
Mark pressed the second over Emily’s face.
She shoved it away.
“Use it yourself.”
“I’m not the target.”
A speaker clicked on.
Diane’s voice filled the room.
“Mark, you continue to mistake sentiment for leverage.”
The other Emily’s eyes fluttered.
Nora pushed the wheelchair toward a side door, but the electronic lock flashed red.
Mark took the brass key from Emily’s hand and inserted it into a hidden panel beneath the observation console.
The glass wall slid sideways, revealing a narrow maintenance shaft.
“Go,” he said.
Emily did not move. “Why help us?”
He looked at the woman in the wheelchair.
“Because I already failed her once.”
Nora pushed the chair into the shaft.
Emily followed.
Mark climbed in behind them and sealed the panel just as the observation room filled with blue vapor.
The shaft sloped downward into darkness. Pipes crowded the ceiling. The wheels rattled over metal grating.
After fifty feet, they reached a junction.
Mark turned left.
The other Emily spoke through the mask. “That goes to surgery.”
“It goes past surgery.”
“You expect us to trust you?”
“No. I expect you to understand they will kill one of you if they cannot control both.”
Emily gripped her handbag. “Which one?”
Mark looked at her.
“The one who can prove she is real.”
They reached a vent overlooking a surgical theater.
Below, Dr. Vale stood beside an empty operating table. Julian Cross was there, along with three technicians. On a wall display were two photographs: Emily and the other woman.
Beneath the first photograph:
ACTIVE IDENTITY.
Beneath the second:
ORIGINAL SOURCE.
A third label blinked at the bottom.
CONSOLIDATION REQUIRED.
Emily’s stomach turned.
A door opened below.
Diane Mercer entered.
She looked older, thinner, but unmistakably alive. Her blond hair was cut short. A burn scar crossed one side of her neck.
Emily pressed a hand over her mouth.
Diane stopped beside the table and looked directly toward the vent.
As though she knew they were there.
“Your daughter is becoming difficult,” Vale said.
Diane smiled faintly.
“Which daughter?”
Julian placed a folder on the instrument tray. “The active version controls the trust. The original can challenge the marriage, the estate transfer, and every contract signed since the accident.”
“Then remove the original,” Vale said.
Diane looked at him.
“No.”
Vale’s expression cooled. “You agreed to the protocol.”
“I agreed to preserve my daughter.”
“You agreed to preserve her assets.”
Diane took a scalpel from the tray.
The technicians tensed.
Then she drove the blade into Julian’s leather folder, pinning it to the table.
“You have ten minutes,” she said. “After that, I release every name in Room 214.”
Vale’s face changed.
“What did you do?”
May you like
Diane looked toward the vent again.
“Emily,” she said loudly, “your father left you a map inside the lottery numbers.”
