Chapter 7 - Blackwater
Blackwater stood at the end of a neglected private road surrounded by dead grass and tall pine trees.
The mansion had once been blue.
Time had faded it to gray.
Boarded windows.
Collapsed gutters.
Ivy strangling one side of the building.
An old iron gate hung open.
Maya stopped the vehicle forty yards from the entrance.
"No cars."
Dean scanned the property.
"Doesn’t mean nobody’s here."
They had decided not to bring Chloe inside.
Then spent twenty minutes arguing about where she would be safer.
Eventually, they kept her with them.
Clara refused to separate from her daughter.
The front door opened with little resistance.
Dust covered everything.
A long foyer stretched toward a staircase.
Old furniture remained beneath white sheets.
Clara imagined Gerald Vance walking these halls thirty years earlier.
A man wealthy enough to erase deaths.
Powerful enough to rewrite a child’s identity.
Under the stairs.
They searched.
Nothing.
Dean examined the wood paneling.
"Gerald liked mechanical latches."
He ran his hand beneath a molding strip.
Click.
A narrow door released.
Behind it was darkness.
Maya used a flashlight.
A staircase descended underground.
Chloe grabbed Clara.
"I don’t like it."
"Neither do I."
Clara wanted to turn around.
Instead, they descended.
At the bottom was a concrete corridor.
Three doors.
The first room contained shelves.
Empty.
The second contained an old desk and filing cabinets.
Mostly empty.
The third door was steel.
Locked.
A wooden bird had been carved into its center.
Clara felt her skin tighten.
Dean stepped forward.
"This is new."
"What?"
"That door wasn’t here before."
"You said you never came down here."
Dean looked ashamed.
"I lied."
Maya gave him a furious stare.
"What did you carry out?"
Dean did not answer.
Clara stepped between them.
"Open it."
They found a key taped under the desk in the second room.
It opened the steel door.
Inside was a windowless chamber.
Clean.
Not abandoned.
Fresh footprints marked the concrete floor.
There was a table.
Two chairs.
A television monitor.
Medical restraints attached to one chair.
Clara immediately covered Chloe’s eyes.
"Take her outside."
Maya guided Chloe into the corridor.
Dean walked toward the table.
A folder lay open.
Clara’s photograph sat on top.
Not an old photograph.
One taken that morning.
Clara leaving her house in the pale pink dress she still wore.
Under it was another photograph.
Chloe getting into the SUV.
Then another.
Richard at the airport.
Someone had documented every movement.
Clara turned.
"This room was prepared for today."
Dean’s face hardened.
"Yes."
A small medical refrigerator hummed in the corner.
Inside were two syringes.
Both labeled C.V.
Clara almost vomited.
On a metal tray nearby sat an identification bracelet.
CLARA VANCE.
Another item.
A passport.
Clara opened it.
Her photograph.
Different name.
Laura Bennett.
A third object.
A death certificate.
Clara Vance.
Cause of death: acute cardiac event during international travel.
Date: tomorrow.
Clara stared until the letters blurred.
"They already wrote my death."
Dean looked sick.
A sound came from the corridor.
Maya.
"Clara."
She was standing completely still.
Chloe was beside her.
The child pointed toward a dark corner.
Someone was there.
A woman stepped forward.
Elena Vance.
Older than the photographs.
Thinner.
A cut across her forehead.
Blood on one sleeve.
She held a pistol.
Dean raised both hands.
"Elena."
She stared at him.
"You."
"Put the gun down."
"You left me."
Dean’s face collapsed.
"I know."
Clara stepped forward.
"Elena."
Elena looked at her.
Then at Chloe.
"You shouldn’t have come."
"You sent me the address."
"I sent you somewhere safer than this."
"You vanished."
Elena laughed bitterly.
"That happens around Vances."
Maya approached.
"Where is the suitcase?"
Elena’s expression changed.
"Gone."
"What?"
"Someone took it."
"Who?"
"I don’t know."
Clara looked at the death certificate.
"Richard?"
Elena shook her head.
"Richard is not the person you should be most afraid of."
Everyone kept saying that.
Clara was finished with shadows.
"Then tell me who."
Elena walked to the table.
She picked up the forged passport.
"Do you know why Gerald created Vance Meridian?"
"Shipping."
"No."
She dropped the passport.
"Replacement."
Clara frowned.
"What does that mean?"
Elena looked at Chloe.
"Children should not hear this."
Chloe immediately held Clara tighter.
"No more separating us."
Elena studied Clara.
Then nodded.
"Gerald’s network moved people who needed to disappear. Sometimes voluntarily. Sometimes not."
"We know."
"No."
Elena’s voice was flat.
"You know the polite version."
She pointed to the identification documents.
"People entered with one identity and left with another."
Clara’s stomach tightened.
"Like me."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Money. Blackmail. Witness relocation outside government systems. Criminal organizations. Wealthy families hiding scandals."
Elena looked at Maya.
"Sometimes children."
Maya’s face hardened.
"Our mother."
Elena nodded.
"Rebecca discovered Blackwater."
"What happened to her?"
Elena stared at the steel chair.
"She was brought here."
Clara’s legs weakened.
"Alive?"
"Yes."
"Did Gerald kill her?"
Elena’s eyes filled.
"No."
"Who did?"
Elena looked toward the doorway.
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Everyone froze.
Dean reached for his weapon.
Elena whispered.
May you like
"We’re not alone."
Then every light in the underground corridor went out.
