Chapter 14 - The Man Who Vanished Twice
Holloway untied Julian and looked directly into the camera.
“Arthur, listen carefully. Irene is not Eleanor’s daughter.”
Arthur pressed closer to the glass.
“Then who is she?”
“Her replacement.”
The locked doors released.
Cruz entered Room 17 and pulled Arthur out.
On the monitor, Irene groaned and reached toward the syringe.
Holloway kicked it away.
“She was trained to continue the program,” he said. “Eleanor used multiple women under the same identity.”
Samuel stared at the screen.
“What does that mean?”
“There was never one E.”
The corridor fell silent.
Holloway continued.
“E was a designation. Executive Controller E. Every generation appointed another.”
Arthur felt the conspiracy expand around them.
“Who is the current E?”
“Irene believed it was her.”
“Believed?”
“She was being tested.”
“By whom?”
Before Holloway could answer, the monitor flickered.
A different feed appeared.
A woman sat in a dark room.
Only her silhouette was visible.
Her voice was natural now, no longer electronically distorted.
“You have always been difficult to educate, Arthur.”
He recognized the voice.
Not from recent years.
From long ago.
His knees nearly failed him.
“Evelyn?”
Samuel turned toward him.
Margaret went pale.
Vanessa stopped breathing.
The woman leaned forward, but her face remained hidden.
“Hello, Arthur.”
His dead wife’s voice filled the underground corridor.
Arthur gripped the edge of a metal table.
“You died.”
“So everyone believed.”
“I buried you.”
“You buried a closed casket.”
Arthur remembered the funeral.
The hospital had advised against viewing the body because of extensive hemorrhaging.
Samuel had arranged everything.
Arthur turned toward him.
Samuel looked genuinely horrified.
“I didn’t know.”
The woman on the screen laughed softly.
“Samuel knew only what I allowed him to know.”
Arthur stepped toward the camera.
“You created this?”
“I tried to expose it.”
“You recruited Vanessa.”
“I observed her.”
“You poisoned me.”
“No. Vanessa poisoned you.”
“You manipulated her.”
“As you manipulated everyone who helped build your empire.”
Vanessa shouted at the screen.
“You told me Arthur approved the trials.”
“I told you he approved the acquisition.”
“You said he knew what happened to us.”
“I said he chose not to know.”
Vanessa looked at Arthur.
That accusation was harder to deny.
Arthur forced his voice steady.
“Why reveal yourself now?”
“Because you opened the room.”
“What room?”
“The chamber beneath Evelyn’s study.”
“You installed the keypad.”
“Yes.”
“You took the ledger.”
“A copy.”
Arthur frowned.
The woman continued.
“The original was never in the house.”
Samuel looked confused.
“But Evelyn wrote the entries.”
“She wrote what she was allowed to discover.”
Arthur’s blood ran cold.
“Where is the original?”
“In the place you built to honor me.”
“The Evelyn Vance Foundation?”
“Beneath it.”
Margaret stepped toward the screen.
“What is in the original ledger?”
“Names, payments, trial records, political agreements, biological samples, and proof that Dorian’s research never ended.”
Arthur looked at the abandoned rooms.
“These trials continued?”
“They evolved.”
“On whom?”
The screen displayed dozens of photographs.
Children.
Adults.
Patients in hospitals.
Soldiers.
Prisoners.
Some photographs were dated within the last year.
Vanessa covered her mouth.
Arthur’s anger became something colder.
“Who funds it?”
The woman’s silhouette tilted her head.
“You do.”
“No.”
“Vance Meridian owns the laboratories. Your foundation provides grants. Your shipping companies transport materials. Your hospitals provide patients.”
“I would know.”
“You did not know twenty-seven years ago.”
The words struck with precision.
Arthur had spent his life believing control was the same as knowledge.
It was not.
The screen changed again.
Holloway and Julian appeared inside the operating theater.
A red alarm flashed behind them.
Holloway looked toward the ceiling.
“Someone activated the sterilization system.”
Cruz understood first.
“Fire.”
Flames erupted along the wall.
Julian struggled against the chair.
Holloway tried to break the door.
Vanessa screamed his name.
The woman’s voice returned.
“The archive will be destroyed in four minutes.”
Arthur looked toward the steel gate.
“We can reach them.”
“No,” Margaret said. “The passage is sealing.”
Arthur ran.
Cruz and Vanessa followed.
Samuel remained near the monitor.
As Arthur reached the far door, a blast shook the corridor.
Smoke poured through the ventilation shafts.
Vanessa grabbed Arthur’s arm.
“Help me save him.”
Arthur looked at the woman who had tried to murder him.
Then at the monitor showing Julian trapped inside the burning room.
Arthur entered the security code displayed on the wall.
ACCESS DENIED.
Vanessa pounded the panel.
“Do something!”
Arthur saw a secondary biometric reader.
He placed his palm against it.
IDENTITY ACCEPTED.
FOUNDER ACCESS REQUIRES SECOND AUTHORIZATION.
“Whose?” Cruz asked.
A name appeared.
EVELYN VANCE.
Arthur looked toward the camera.
May you like
The woman’s voice whispered through the speaker.
“Ask me nicely.”
