Chapter 13 - the brother who inherited a dead man’s face
The projector shut off.
Only the emergency lanterns illuminated the chapel.
Celeste opened a folder inside the metal case.
It contained two photographs taken on the night of the Blackwater crash.
The first showed Adrian entering his car outside the Vale headquarters.
The second showed another man sitting in the passenger seat.
They looked almost identical.
“Adrian had a twin,” Celeste said.
Julian had never mentioned a twin.
Neither had any public history of the Vale family.
Elias took the photograph.
“This is impossible. I treated Adrian from childhood. Conrad had only two sons, Adrian and Julian.”
“Conrad acknowledged only two sons.”
Celeste looked toward the dark projector screen.
“The second child was born seven minutes after Adrian. Conrad believed the baby had died.”
“What was his name?” Vivian asked.
“Alexander.”
Ruth shook her head.
“Helena never told me.”
“She did not know until the night of the crash.”
Celeste explained that Adrian discovered his twin while investigating the Blackwater accounts. Conrad’s former physician had secretly placed the newborn with another family after Celeste was told the child had not survived.
“Why?” Nathan asked.
“Alexander was born with a heart condition. Conrad did not want a medically vulnerable heir associated with his name.”
Vivian looked at Celeste with disgust.
“And you stayed with him.”
“I was twenty-one, isolated, and told my child was dead.”
“You helped protect him for decades.”
“I also spent decades searching for Alexander.”
Celeste continued.
Adrian located his brother shortly before the crash. Alexander had grown up under the surname Rowan, though he was not related to Helena’s family. He had become a financial investigator and had unknowingly begun examining Conrad’s shell companies.
“On Blackwater Road, Conrad’s security team tried to stop Adrian from meeting federal investigators,” Celeste said. “Alexander was in the car with him.”
“Who was injured?” Elias asked.
“Both men.”
“But only one arrived at St. Catherine’s.”
“One arrived through the emergency entrance. Helena moved the other through a private clinic before Conrad found him.”
Vivian looked at Ruth.
“Did my mother save both brothers?”
Ruth appeared shaken.
“She never told me.”
Celeste touched the bracelet bearing Adrian’s name.
“The man Elias treated in Room 7 may have been Alexander.”
Elias shook his head.
“He knew details only Adrian would know.”
“They had spent weeks together exchanging records, histories, and family information.”
Nathan looked toward the projector.
“Which brother made the recording?”
“I don’t know.”
Vivian felt anger rising again.
“You brought us here to replace one mystery with another.”
“I came because Julian escaped federal custody forty minutes ago.”
Nathan immediately called his team.
The response confirmed it.
A transport vehicle had been struck at an intersection. Julian disappeared during the confusion. Two officers suffered minor injuries, but no one knew where he had gone.
Vivian placed a hand over her stomach.
“What does Julian want now?”
“The fourth embryo,” Celeste said.
“Sophie already delivered. Her child isn’t connected to Adrian.”
“Sophie carried Embryo C.”
Vivian stared at her.
“Then who received Embryo D?”
Celeste looked toward the chapel doors.
“No transfer was recorded.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“The embryo disappeared from the institute.”
“When?”
“Eleven years ago.”
The year Helena died.
Vivian remembered the warning her mother had left.
The child Julian creates will lead you toward Adrian, but the child is not the final key.
“Did my mother take it?”
“I believe she tried to destroy it,” Celeste said. “Julian believes she transferred it.”
“To whom?”
“No one knows.”
Nathan ended his call.
“Every airport and highway unit has Julian’s description. He will not get far.”
Celeste gave him a tired look.
“Julian has spent his entire life preparing routes your agencies do not know exist.”
Vivian examined the second bracelet.
A serial number had been partly scratched away.
Elias compared it to hospital archives on his tablet.
“The number belongs to a blood sample collected in Room 7.”
“Can it identify which twin survived?” Nathan asked.
“If the sample is intact.”
Celeste handed him the case.
“Then restore Thomas Rowan’s identity and test the bracelet.”
She turned to leave.
Vivian stopped her.
“You do not get to walk away.”
Celeste faced her.
“I am not asking forgiveness.”
“You manipulated Sophie. You knew about Mara’s child. You watched Julian control my pregnancy.”
“I also delayed him every time I could.”
“That does not make you innocent.”
“No.”
Celeste accepted the accusation without argument.
“But Julian will come for you before sunrise. You need to decide where you will be when he does.”
Nathan ordered officers to detain Celeste for questioning.
She did not resist.
Before entering the federal vehicle, she looked at Vivian.
“Ask yourself why Julian chose you instead of one of the other women.”
“Because of my mother.”
“That is what he wanted you to believe.”
“What is the real reason?”
Celeste’s eyes moved toward Vivian’s face.
“Because you have the same eyes as Alexander’s daughter.”
The car door closed.
Vivian stood motionless.
Elias looked at her.
“Your father’s name was Daniel Mercer.”
“That is what my birth certificate says.”
Ruth lowered her head.
Vivian understood before anyone spoke.
“My mother knew Alexander.”
Ruth began to cry.
“She knew him better than she ever told us.”
Vivian felt the baby move beneath her hand.
“If Alexander was my biological father…”
Nathan finished the thought.
“Then your child may not have been created from Adrian’s sample at all.”
Elias looked at the silver crescent visible in Vivian’s left eye beneath the chapel light.
May you like
A feature no one had noticed because it appeared only from certain angles.
“Vivian,” he whispered, “you may be the Vale heir Julian was searching for long before your pregnancy.”
