Chapter 10 - what Elaine protected
Security officers surrounded Elaine.
Victor stood between her and Rachel.
“Tell them the truth,” Elaine said.
Victor’s face hardened.
“This is not the time.”
“It became the time fourteen years ago.”
Rachel stepped around him.
“Did you pay Ethan?”
“No.”
“The authorization carries your identity.”
“Because I created Northlight Holdings.”
Douglas Vane laughed from where officers held him.
“Careful, Elaine.”
She ignored him.
“Northlight was a protected channel Margaret and I used to move witnesses before Meridian could find them. After she disappeared, Douglas captured part of the network.”
“So the payments came from your company.”
“Yes, but I did not authorize them.”
“Someone copied your identity?”
“Someone who had access to my legal office and Victor’s command credentials.”
Rachel looked at Ethan.
He remained on the floor with an officer beside him.
Ethan shook his head.
“I received instructions through Northlight. I never met the controller.”
“You met Adrian,” Rachel said.
“Adrian was only the messenger.”
Elaine faced Victor.
“Show her the archive.”
Victor did not move.
Rachel pushed past him and entered the steel doorway.
Lights activated one by one.
The archive was not a room filled with papers. It was a narrow circular chamber lined with glass panels. Each panel held encrypted drives and sealed evidence boxes.
In the center stood a vertical medical capsule.
A figure moved behind its frosted surface.
Rachel stopped.
The glass cleared.
The woman inside wore Margaret’s coat.
Her silver-streaked hair framed a face nearly identical to the one in Rachel’s childhood memories.
Rachel approached the glass.
“Mom?”
The woman opened her eyes.
She raised her hand and pressed it against the capsule.
Rachel placed her own hand over it.
The woman’s lips moved.
No sound passed through the glass.
Victor entered behind Rachel.
“This is not your mother.”
Rachel turned on him.
“Nora said she was the replacement.”
“This is another one.”
The woman inside the capsule began striking the glass.
“Her name is Dr. Celeste Rowan,” Elaine said from the doorway. “She helped Margaret design the succession system.”
Rachel looked between them.
“Why does she look like her?”
“Reconstructive surgery,” Victor said. “Meridian altered multiple women to resemble Margaret.”
The cruelty of it was difficult to understand.
“For what purpose?”
“To create conflicting sightings, false evidence, and access attempts,” Elaine said. “If no one could prove which Margaret was real, no testimony connected to her would survive court.”
Celeste struck the glass again and pointed toward the control panel.
Nora entered the chamber and entered a release code.
The capsule opened with a hiss.
Celeste collapsed forward.
Rachel caught her.
The woman was weak but conscious.
“You are Rachel,” Celeste whispered.
“Yes.”
“Where is Lily?”
“She is safe.”
Relief crossed Celeste’s face.
“Then Margaret’s protocol worked.”
Rachel held her shoulders.
“Where is my mother?”
Celeste looked toward Victor.
“He never found her?”
Victor’s expression answered.
Celeste closed her eyes.
“Then Adrian lied to us both.”
Elaine moved closer.
“When were you placed inside the capsule?”
“Three days ago. Adrian came through the old tunnel. He said Rachel had signed the transfer and the archive belonged to Meridian.”
Rachel looked at the sealed drives.
“What is so important here?”
Celeste pointed toward a dark glass panel marked M-14.
“The original list.”
Nora opened the panel.
It was empty.
A red light flashed.
FILE REMOVED.
Victor turned toward Adrian, but officers were already searching him.
Adrian smiled from the floor.
“I did not take it.”
Elaine looked at the darkness beyond the archive.
“Someone entered before us.”
Rachel remembered the figure Lily had seen in the blue room wearing Margaret’s coat.
Not Nora.
Not Celeste, who had been trapped inside the capsule.
Someone else had been inside the mansion all evening.
Lily appeared at the archive entrance.
“Mommy?”
Rachel hurried to her.
Lily held the wooden ship in one hand.
“There was a lady in the blue room,” she said. “She told me not to look at her face.”
Victor crouched in front of her.
“What did she do?”
“She put something inside my ship.”
Nora opened the wooden base.
Beneath the memory chip was a small black drive that had not been there earlier.
May you like
On its surface, someone had written two words in Margaret’s handwriting.
NOT ELAINE.
