Chapter 17 - LAURA’S FIRST WARNINGNolan carried the cartridge into the ambulance and placed it beside an evidence scanner.
Harper refused to let anyone take her farther than arm’s reach from it.
The screen flickered.
Laura appeared sitting behind Harper’s eighth birthday cake.
The cake was covered in pale blue butterflies.
Nine candles stood on top.
Harper remembered only eight.
Laura leaned toward the camera.
“Harper, if you are watching this, someone has already replaced a member of our family.”
Harper’s hands went cold.
Laura continued.
“The replacement will know birthdays, signatures, habits and private stories. Do not test them with memories they could have read.”
Adrian looked toward Margaret.
Laura lifted a silver butterfly decoration from the cake.
“Test them with guilt.”
The recording changed.
Security footage appeared.
Bennett stood inside a hospital corridor arguing with a man Harper recognized as Victor.
The date was six months before Laura’s death.
Victor held a medical consent form.
Bennett refused to sign it.
Then another man entered.
He wore Bennett’s coat.
He signed.
The camera never captured his face.
Harper looked at Nolan.
“My dad did not approve the medication.”
“Someone signed for him,” Nolan said.
Laura returned to the screen.
“Victor had access to facial reconstruction, voice modeling and behavioral files collected through Hale Family Health. Evelyn helped him identify suitable replacements.”
Adrian’s expression hardened.
Harper remembered Evelyn telling Bennett what coffee he liked, which tie to wear, and how to answer reporters.
Perhaps she had not been controlling him.
Perhaps she had been teaching someone how to be him.
Laura continued.
“But Evelyn later tried to stop the program. I did not know whether to trust her.”
The recording jumped.
A hospital archive number appeared.
PATIENT 09-BH
Samuel leaned forward.
“BH. Bennett Hale.”
The ambulance lights flickered.
Someone outside shouted.
A police officer collapsed near the road.
A dart protruded from his neck.
The black vehicle had returned without headlights.
Masked figures moved through the rain.
Nolan locked the ambulance doors.
The cartridge displayed a final line:
PATIENT 09-BH WAS TRANSFERRED TO HALE HOUSE.
Harper looked toward the distant mansion beyond the trees.
Her real father was not beneath the river.
He had been inside their home.
May you like
Perhaps for years.
Then the ambulance doors exploded inward.
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