Chapter 10 - The Man With Daniel’s Face
Evelyn ran upstairs.
Sophie’s bedroom door was locked.
She struck it with both hands.
“Sophie!”
Marcus reached her and forced the door open.
The room was empty.
A window stood open above the sloping porch roof.
The bedsheets had been tied together and lowered to the ground.
On the pillow lay a note.
SHE CAME WITH ME WILLINGLY.
Evelyn grabbed the paper.
“No.”
Marcus leaned through the window.
“Tire tracks in the field.”
Caroline entered behind them.
“Where is Daniel?”
“That wasn’t Daniel,” Evelyn said.
Caroline went pale.
“What?”
“Julian called. He said the man downstairs wasn’t Daniel.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
The face, the voice, the scar, even the way he held Sophie had been perfect.
But Evelyn remembered something.
Daniel had always rubbed the inside of his left thumb when nervous.
The man at the airfield had never done it.
And when Sophie ran to him, he had held her with his right arm.
Daniel’s right shoulder had been permanently injured in a climbing accident. He could lift it, but never without pain.
The man had shown no weakness.
Detective Ortiz ordered roadblocks in every direction.
The tire tracks led to the highway, then vanished among morning traffic.
They found a discarded police radio beside the road.
The impostor had listened to their movements from the beginning.
Evelyn called Julian again.
A nurse answered and transferred the call.
“What did you mean?” Evelyn demanded.
Julian struggled to speak.
“When we were children, Vivian created replacements.”
“People trained to become someone else?”
“Not just trained. Altered.”
“That is impossible.”
“Faces can be changed. Voices can be learned. Memories can be copied through years of observation.”
“How did you know?”
“The man at the airfield had a scar on the wrong side.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
She had been too overwhelmed to notice.
“Where is the real Daniel?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who was the impostor?”
“J-4R.”
“The replacement Julian?”
“Yes.”
“Then who are you?”
Julian did not answer.
“Are you the original?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
A noise sounded on his end.
Julian whispered, “Someone’s here.”
The line disconnected.
Police at the hospital reported that Julian had disappeared from his guarded room. Two officers had been found unconscious in the stairwell.
Caroline sank onto the bed.
“He left me.”
“He may have been taken.”
“He knew enough to escape.”
Evelyn turned on her.
“You approved Vivian’s invitation. You helped stage Daniel’s death. You kept every secret until Sophie was taken twice.”
“I was trying to protect everyone.”
“You protected the secrets.”
Caroline began crying.
“Because the truth destroys people.”
“The lies already did.”
Marcus entered with a laptop.
“We recovered data from the memory card found in locker 317.”
The card contained twenty-seven video files.
Most were damaged.
One showed the real Daniel chained inside a concrete room.
The recording date was only eight days earlier.
Daniel faced the camera.
“If Evelyn sees this, tell her the man using my identity is named Adrian.”
Caroline covered her mouth.
“Adrian.”
“You know him?” Evelyn asked.
“He was Zero.”
The video continued.
“Adrian survived Saint Ormond because Vivian could never control him. Years later, he returned and infiltrated the network. I trusted him. That was a mistake.”
Daniel lifted his head.
“He doesn’t want to destroy Ormond. He wants to rebuild it with himself at the center.”
The screen flickered.
“Sophie is important because Vivian conditioned her to remember the location of the original archive. Adrian intends to reach it first.”
Evelyn moved closer.
“Where is the archive?”
Daniel answered as though he had heard her.
“Beneath Beatrice Ashford’s summer house.”
Caroline looked up sharply.
“The house burned down twenty years ago.”
“The house did,” Marcus said. “The foundation may still exist.”
The video continued.
“Evelyn, Vivian believes you hid Adrian after the fire. That isn’t true. You tried to stop him.”
Evelyn’s heartbeat quickened.
“Stop him from what?”
Daniel looked directly into the camera.
“From taking Amelia.”
The file ended.
Another video opened automatically.
It showed Adrian standing in the same concrete room.
He looked nothing like Daniel.
He had dark hair, a narrow face, and gray eyes.
Amelia stood beside him.
Unlike the young woman at the hospital, this Amelia appeared to be in her thirties.
“The girl you saw is not Amelia,” Adrian said. “She is another replacement.”
He smiled slightly.
“By now, I have Sophie.”
Evelyn realized the video was not prerecorded.
A live indicator blinked in the corner.
Adrian turned the camera.
Sophie sat in the passenger seat of a moving car.
She was frightened but unharmed.
“Mommy?”
Evelyn touched the screen.
“Sophie.”
Adrian’s face reappeared.
“Come to Beatrice’s house alone.”
“Let her go.”
“She will be released when she opens the archive.”
“She doesn’t know how.”
“She does. Vivian made sure of it.”
The image shifted to reveal a second prisoner in the back seat.
Margaret sat with her hands bound.
Blood marked the corner of her mouth.
May you like
Adrian smiled.
“Bring Caroline. Evelyn must decide which mother deserves to survive.”
