Chapter 14 - The Woman Behind the Door
Nathan survived surgery.
He requested immunity.
No one promised it.
He requested protection.
Everyone understood why.
Danielle watched him from behind reinforced glass.
He looked smaller in a hospital bed.
Weak.
Pale.
Nothing like the composed doctor on Clara’s recordings.
Clara refused to see him.
Danielle did.
Nathan smiled faintly when she entered.
“Candidate D.”
“Call me that again and I leave.”
“Danielle.”
“Who put my name in the ledger?”
“Thomas.”
“Why?”
Nathan closed his eyes.
“Because you were his contingency.”
“For what?”
“Jonathan.”
Danielle frowned.
“Explain.”
Nathan said Jonathan survived Janus but never fully escaped its psychological damage.
He became brilliant.
Suspicious.
Obsessive.
Thomas believed Jonathan might eventually attempt to open the Janus archive.
So Thomas designed Meridian around a second operator.
Danielle.
“You.”
“Why me?”
“Your biological profile.”
Danielle’s body went cold.
“What profile?”
Nathan looked at her.
“You really don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“Thomas didn’t choose you because you were talented.”
Danielle clenched her jaw.
“He chose you because you matched.”
“Matched what?”
“The original Janus family line.”
Danielle stepped closer.
“Whose?”
Nathan smiled weakly.
“Evelyn’s.”
Danielle stared.
“No.”
“You’re not Arthur’s daughter.”
“Good.”
“But you are connected to Evelyn.”
“How?”
Nathan’s smile faded.
“That’s the part Jonathan never discovered.”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
Danielle almost struck him.
Nathan continued.
“I only know your early childhood records were altered.”
“By Thomas?”
“Yes.”
“Did my parents know?”
“Your adoptive parents?”
The words hit hard.
Danielle steadied herself.
“Yes.”
“Robert knew.”
“What about Helen?”
“I don’t know.”
“Clara?”
“No.”
Danielle looked away.
Robert had known.
Her father.
The man who taught her to drive.
The man who saved every school project.
The man who cried when she got her first scholarship.
Had he protected her?
Or participated?
Nathan said, “Thomas placed several children with families after Janus.”
“So I was one of them.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“You weren’t on the original recovery list.”
“Then what was I?”
Nathan’s expression became frightened.
“The next phase.”
Danielle felt a chill.
“What next phase?”
“I never had clearance.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Who did?”
Nathan whispered, “Evelyn.”
Danielle left.
She went directly to Evelyn.
The older woman sat alone in detention.
Danielle dropped the photograph of the thirty-third entry onto the table.
Evelyn stared at it.
All color disappeared from her face.
Danielle sat.
“Who am I?”
Evelyn did not answer.
“Who am I?”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
Danielle slammed her palm against the table.
“LOOK AT ME.”
Evelyn opened them.
For the first time Danielle saw tears.
“You weren’t supposed to exist.”
Danielle became very still.
“What does that mean?”
“Janus began with psychological conditioning.”
“I know.”
“Later Richard wanted heredity.”
Danielle felt sick.
“What kind of heredity?”
“He believed certain cognitive traits could be selected.”
“You mean breeding.”
Evelyn flinched.
“Yes.”
“Children created for the program?”
“Yes.”
Danielle whispered, “Was I one?”
Evelyn looked at her.
“No.”
Danielle exhaled.
Then Evelyn continued.
“You were born from one.”
Silence.
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“Who was she?”
Evelyn lowered her eyes.
“Grace.”
Danielle froze.
The teenage girl in the photograph.
Recovered 1998.
Grace Vance.
Danielle’s mother.
Not Helen.
Not biologically.
Danielle whispered, “Why was her last name Vance?”
Evelyn said nothing.
“Was Arthur her father?”
“No.”
“Jonathan?”
“No.”
“Marcus?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why Vance?”
Evelyn’s next words came quietly.
“Because Richard gave every Janus child his family name.”
Danielle stared.
“So Grace wasn’t related to you.”
Evelyn looked toward her.
“Yes, she was.”
The room felt suddenly airless.
“How?”
Evelyn’s lips trembled.
“Grace was my daughter.”
Danielle stopped breathing.
Impossible.
Arthur had remembered the pregnancy.
The miscarriage.
Forty-one years earlier.
Grace would have been much older.
Then Danielle understood.
“You didn’t miscarry.”
Evelyn began crying.
“They took her.”
“Richard?”
“Yes.”
“Arthur never knew?”
“No.”
Danielle felt the world tilt.
If Grace was Evelyn’s daughter…
And Grace was Danielle’s biological mother…
Evelyn Vance was Danielle’s grandmother.
Marcus’s mother.
Which meant Marcus…
Danielle stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
Evelyn whispered, “Danielle.”
Marcus was Evelyn’s son.
Danielle was Evelyn’s granddaughter.
Marcus was Danielle’s uncle.
Danielle covered her mouth.
The wedding.
The relationship.
Three years.
Evelyn knew.
“You knew.”
Evelyn cried harder.
“You knew what Marcus was to me.”
“I didn’t know at first.”
“You planned our wedding.”
“I discovered the truth six months ago.”
“And said nothing.”
“I was trying to control the fallout.”
Danielle laughed in horror.
“Control the fallout?”
“Marcus does not know.”
Danielle stared at her.
“He can never know.”
“He is going to know.”
“No.”
Evelyn stood.
“He cannot.”
“Why?”
Evelyn gripped the table.
“Because if Marcus learns Grace had a child, he will understand why Richard selected him for the second Janus phase.”
Danielle frowned.
“What are you talking about?”
A guard entered.
“Time.”
Danielle ignored him.
“What second phase?”
Evelyn’s eyes widened with terror.
“You need to leave the city.”
“Why?”
“Because Jonathan took the second ledger.”
“So?”
May you like
Evelyn whispered:
“And now he knows exactly what you are.”
