Chapter 7 - The Funeral With No Body
William Bennett’s funeral had been private.
Closed casket.
Official explanation: medical complications after a heart attack made viewing inappropriate.
Alexander remembered signing cremation authorization.
Or believed he had.
Detective Price obtained the funeral home records by morning.
The signature authorizing cremation was Alexander’s.
He studied it.
“That looks like mine.”
Price placed another document beside it.
“Except you were in London when it was signed.”
Alexander checked the date.
He had been negotiating the Hawthorne acquisition.
“There are passport records.”
Price nodded.
“So either you flew home secretly, signed this, and returned to London within six hours without immigration recording it…”
“Or it was forged.”
“Exactly.”
Daniel stood across the library, keeping distance from Price.
The detective distrusted him completely.
Alexander did too.
But Daniel had evidence.
Old photographs.
Medical reports.
Encrypted drives.
Enough to prove Blackridge existed.
Not enough to reveal who controlled it now.
Price said, “We exhumed the cemetery plot.”
Alexander looked at him.
“And?”
“Empty.”
The silence was absolute.
William Bennett had supposedly been cremated.
Yet his grave contained no urn.
No ashes.
Nothing.
Alexander walked toward the window.
“Claire said don’t trust the dead.”
Daniel nodded.
“She suspected William survived.”
“Did you see him?”
“No.”
“Then how did he fake his heart attack?”
“He didn’t.”
Alexander turned.
Daniel explained.
“William really collapsed. But the ambulance was controlled by Blackridge.”
“Where did they take him?”
“We never found out.”
“So my father could have been alive for the last two and a half years.”
“Yes.”
“And running this?”
“Maybe.”
Alexander hated the word.
Maybe.
Everything had become maybe.
Maybe Claire lived.
Maybe William lived.
Maybe Daniel told the truth.
Maybe Rebecca served someone else.
The only certainty was Lily had been hurt.
That certainty guided him.
“Where would William go?”
Daniel hesitated.
“There was another facility.”
Alexander stared.
“Another Blackridge?”
“Not exactly.”
“Where?”
“Claire called it North House.”
Price asked, “Location?”
“No one knew.”
“You expect us to believe an entire medical facility existed without a location?”
“It moved.”
Price frowned.
Daniel continued.
“Private rehabilitation residences. Temporary clinics. Rented estates. Patients were transferred constantly.”
Alexander thought about Rebecca’s train ticket.
“Why come to Blackridge?”
“To retrieve records.”
“Which records?”
“Patient continuity files.”
“For Lily?”
Daniel did not answer fast enough.
Alexander crossed the room.
“For Lily?”
“Yes.”
His voice dropped.
“Why?”
Daniel looked at Lily’s photograph on the desk.
“Because the program may not be finished with her.”
Alexander grabbed him by the collar.
“Explain.”
“William believed Lily responded unusually after the injury.”
“She lost the ability to walk.”
“That wasn’t the response they were measuring.”
Alexander released him slowly.
“What were they measuring?”
“Memory.”
Alexander stared.
Daniel pulled a folder from his bag.
Inside were reports labeled COGNITIVE TRANSFER RESPONSE.
“They exposed children to controlled trauma and then tested whether repeated emotional cues altered recall, loyalty, and identity.”
Price looked sick.
“Brainwashing.”
“Something close.”
Alexander’s face hardened.
“And Rebecca demanding Lily call her Mom?”
Daniel nodded.
“She was continuing conditioning.”
Alexander thought of the ice water.
The forced standing.
The threats against Evelyn.
“She wanted Lily to replace Claire.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Daniel’s answer came quietly.
“Because Claire may be the key to getting Lily to remember something.”
“Remember what?”
Daniel opened another file.
A photograph showed toddler Lily sitting on Claire’s lap.
Behind them was a wall covered in equations.
Next to the photograph:
SUBJECT 04 OBSERVED MASTER ACCESS SEQUENCE.
Alexander frowned.
“She was eighteen months old.”
“She watched Claire enter something.”
“A code?”
“We think so.”
“To what?”
Daniel met his eyes.
“The central archive.”
Price leaned forward.
“What’s in it?”
“Every patient. Every doctor. Every donor. Every politician who protected Blackridge.”
Alexander understood.
Rebecca was not merely abusing Lily.
She was trying to unlock a memory.
A memory buried inside a five-year-old child.
Then Evelyn entered carrying a package.
“This was left at the gate.”
No return address.
Alexander opened it.
Inside lay a red child’s shoe.
Lily’s old shoe.
The pair she wore on the day of her accident.
Beneath it was a note.
May you like
BRING SUBJECT 04 TO NORTH HOUSE.
OR CLAIRE BENNETT DIES FOR REAL.
