Chapter 6 - The Mother Who Lied
Evelyn had not spoken to Margaret in three weeks.
Their last conversation had ended in an argument after Margaret insisted Sophie should not attend Caroline’s wedding.
“Too many strangers,” she had said. “Too much attention.”
At the time, Evelyn believed her mother was being overprotective.
Now the warning sounded different.
Margaret lived forty minutes outside the city in the same small house where Evelyn had grown up. Detective Ortiz dispatched officers there while Evelyn remained at the hospital.
No one answered the door.
The house was empty.
Every family photograph had been removed.
So had Margaret’s clothes, passport, and computer.
Only one object remained on the kitchen table.
A red leather book.
Evelyn arrived before midnight.
She entered the silent house holding Sophie’s hand. Marcus and Ortiz followed.
Sophie looked around.
“Where’s Grandma?”
“I don’t know.”
The red book appeared old, with cracked leather and faded gold corners.
Evelyn opened it.
The pages contained children’s stories written in Margaret’s handwriting.
The first was about a girl who lived inside a glass tower.
The second described a fox who stole names.
The third followed a mother who hid her child from a queen.
“It’s my bedtime book,” Sophie said.
“Grandma read this to you?”
“Every time I slept here.”
Evelyn turned the pages.
Nothing looked like a financial ledger.
Marcus examined the binding.
“It may contain a hidden compartment.”
He ran his fingers along the spine and found a narrow seam.
Inside was a microfilm strip.
Ortiz photographed it for evidence.
Evelyn looked at Sophie.
“Did Grandma ever ask you to keep this secret?”
Sophie nodded.
“She said Daddy wrote the stories.”
“Did he?”
“I don’t know.”
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Everyone turned.
Ortiz drew her weapon.
“Stay here.”
She and Marcus climbed the staircase.
Evelyn moved Sophie behind her.
A window shattered above them.
Footsteps ran across the upper hallway.
Ortiz shouted.
The back door slammed.
By the time they reached the garden, the intruder had vanished into the trees.
But they found an open safe behind a painting in Margaret’s bedroom.
Inside were dozens of identity documents.
One belonged to Margaret Bell.
Another to Vivian Mercer.
A third to Beatrice Ashford.
Every photograph showed the same woman at different ages.
Evelyn sat down heavily.
Her mother was Vivian Mercer.
Daniel’s missing mother.
Which meant Daniel was not merely Evelyn’s husband.
He had been Margaret’s son.
Evelyn’s stomach twisted.
“No,” she whispered.
Ortiz understood her fear.
“The documents may be false.”
“They have to be.”
Marcus examined the birth dates.
“They overlap. These are constructed identities.”
Evelyn struggled to breathe.
“Daniel and I cannot be related.”
“You may not be,” Ortiz said. “We need records.”
Sophie pulled on Evelyn’s sleeve.
“Mommy, why is Grandma’s picture on Daddy’s card?”
Evelyn closed the safe.
“We’re going somewhere else tonight.”
They moved to a protected police residence.
At two in the morning, Ortiz received preliminary results.
Margaret Bell had no verifiable history before the age of twenty-eight.
Evelyn’s birth certificate had been filed by a private physician.
The hospital listed on it had burned down two months later.
No original records survived.
Daniel’s birth certificate also contained irregularities.
But DNA from old medical samples showed Evelyn and Daniel were not biologically related.
The relief lasted only seconds.
A second comparison revealed that Margaret was not Evelyn’s biological mother.
She had raised Evelyn under a stolen identity.
“Then who am I?” Evelyn asked.
Ortiz had no answer.
Marcus connected the microfilm to a portable reader.
The images showed lists of dates, accounts, and coded initials. Several names appeared repeatedly.
P. Vale.
C. Mercer.
J. Ashford.
M. Bell.
At the end was a photograph of six children standing outside Saint Ormond House.
Daniel was among them.
So was Evelyn.
She recognized herself despite being no older than four.
Margaret stood behind the children.
On the back of the photograph were the words:
ORIGINAL ORMOND SUBJECTS. MEMORY PHASE SUCCESSFUL.
Evelyn stared at the image.
“I never lived there.”
Marcus enlarged the photograph.
A young Caroline stood beside Daniel.
Another child resembled Julian.
The sixth was a dark-haired girl with a serious expression.
Sophie pointed.
“That’s Amelia.”
The photograph had been taken nearly twenty-five years earlier.
Amelia had not aged.
The woman who attacked Preston at the hospital looked seventeen.
Yet she had existed when Evelyn was a child.
Marcus studied the code beneath Amelia’s name.
“A-6.”
Evelyn’s code was E-2.
Daniel’s was D-1.
The final page contained a sentence.
When D-1 returns, E-2 must remember what she did.
Sophie looked at her mother.
“What did you do?”
Evelyn had no memory of Saint Ormond House.
No memory of Daniel as a child.
No memory of Amelia.
But as she stared at the photograph, an image entered her mind.
A basement room.
Six children seated around a red table.
May you like
A woman wearing a sapphire necklace.
And Evelyn’s own hand holding a blood-covered knife.
