Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Died Twice)
Marcus did not return to the ballroom.
Within ten minutes he had Lily moved to the secured residential wing with Nathan and two guards Marcus had personally hired years earlier.
Nobody else was permitted inside.
Not Victoria.
Not Adrian.
Not the staff.
Especially not family.
Marcus stood beside the window while Lily slept on the sofa beneath a blanket.
Her stuffed rabbit had been cleaned and returned to her.
Nathan worked at a laptop.
"The call bounced through at least six relays," he said. "I'm not getting a source."
Marcus stared at the city lights beyond the glass.
"Find one."
"I'm trying."
Marcus unfolded the old photograph again.
THORNE PROJECT.
SUBJECT 07 APPROVED.
His father, Charles Thorne, had been one of Chicago's most respected industrialists.
Marcus remembered him as demanding but decent.
Charles had funded hospitals, schools and research programs.
He had also kept secrets.
After his death, Marcus had discovered foreign accounts and shell companies.
Nothing illegal had ever been proven.
Marcus had eventually decided his father had simply enjoyed privacy.
Now he wondered whether he had mistaken secrecy for eccentricity because the alternative had been too uncomfortable.
"Who was Subject 07?" Marcus asked.
Nathan stopped typing.
"I don't know."
"Then what do you know?"
Nathan sighed.
"I worked for your father before I worked for you."
Marcus turned.
"That isn't news."
"What I never told you is that I didn't start in corporate security."
Nathan leaned back.
"I was hired for a medical complex your father financed near Lake Geneva."
Marcus glanced at the photograph.
"The building behind them?"
"Yes."
"What happened there?"
"I was perimeter security. Low-level. I didn't know what happened inside. People arrived under false names. Doctors came at night. Documents were burned every Friday."
Marcus's eyes narrowed.
"And you never thought that was worth mentioning?"
"I was twenty-four. Your father paid triple market salary and made everyone sign contracts that terrified us."
Nathan rubbed his jaw.
"Then a woman disappeared."
"What woman?"
"One of the nurses. Rebecca Lane."
Marcus waited.
Nathan continued.
"She told me she had found records proving patients were being treated without proper consent. She said some of them weren't patients at all."
"What were they?"
"Subjects."
The word hung between them.
Marcus looked at sleeping Lily.
"What happened to Rebecca?"
"Officially? She quit."
"And actually?"
"I saw her car leave the facility with someone else driving it."
Marcus's stomach tightened.
"Why didn't you go to police?"
"I did."
Marcus blinked.
"The detective I spoke to called your father before I even got home."
Nathan's voice became quieter.
"The next morning Charles Thorne told me I could either forget Rebecca Lane or lose everything I had."
Marcus felt a slow, bitter anger.
"So you forgot her."
"No."
Nathan opened another file on the computer.
"I kept looking."
A scanned newspaper clipping appeared.
LOCAL NURSE KILLED IN HIGHWAY ACCIDENT.
Rebecca Lane, twenty-eight.
Marcus studied the photograph.
Then his phone vibrated.
A message from Victoria.
Marcus, open this door. You are frightening Lily unnecessarily.
He almost laughed.
Instead he typed:
You grabbed my six-year-old daughter while another man threatened her. Stay away from us.
Three dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
No response.
Marcus set the phone down.
Nathan cleared his throat.
"There is something else."
"Go ahead."
"The date of Rebecca Lane's death was November eighteenth."
Marcus did not understand.
Then he did.
Elena had died on November eighteenth too.
Different year.
Same date.
Marcus's chest tightened.
"Coincidence?"
Nathan looked at him.
"I don't believe in many anymore."
Marcus took out the crystal pendant.
Nathan placed it beneath a desk magnifier.
"It's not ordinary crystal."
"What is it?"
"Possibly quartz composite. There's something embedded inside."
Marcus leaned closer.
Nathan rotated the pendant.
A tiny dark rectangle was visible within the fractured edge.
"A data chip," Marcus said.
"Looks like it."
"Can you access it?"
"Maybe."
Marcus's phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered immediately.
"Hello?"
Silence.
Then breathing.
A woman's breathing.
Marcus stood very still.
"Who is this?"
More silence.
Then a whisper.
"Marcus?"
His knees almost failed.
He knew that voice.
Four years could not erase it.
Neither grief nor alcohol nor sleepless nights had erased it.
"Elena?"
Nathan looked up sharply.
The woman on the phone began crying.
"Marcus, don't let them take Lily."
Marcus gripped the desk.
"Where are you?"
The connection crackled.
"Elena, where are you?"
"They told you I died."
His vision blurred.
"Where are you?"
A door slammed somewhere on the other end.
The woman gasped.
Then hurriedly whispered:
"Your mother knows."
The call ended.
Marcus stood motionless.
Nathan stared at him.
"Was that..."
"Yes."
Marcus tried calling back.
The number did not exist.
He called again.
Nothing.
He felt anger, hope, terror and disbelief fighting inside him.
Maybe someone had synthesized Elena's voice.
Maybe someone wanted to manipulate him.
Maybe grief was making him hear what he wanted to hear.
Then Lily spoke from the sofa.
"Daddy?"
Marcus turned.
She was awake.
Her eyes were huge.
"Was that Mommy?"
Marcus crossed the room and knelt beside her.
"I don't know."
Lily reached beneath the blanket.
She held something in her fist.
Marcus had not seen it before.
A folded piece of paper.
"Where did you get that?"
"It was inside Bunny."
Marcus unfolded it.
The handwriting was unmistakable.
Elena's.
Marcus,
If Lily ever finds the crystal, they already know who she is.
Do not trust Victoria.
Do not trust Adrian.
And whatever they tell you about my death, remember this:
You never saw my body.
Marcus read the final line twice.
Then three times.
He looked at Nathan.
Nathan's face had gone white.
Because Marcus had indeed never seen Elena's body.
The coffin had been closed.
May you like
Victoria had insisted the injuries were too severe.
And Marcus, destroyed by grief, had believed his mother.
