Chapter 10 - Patient Zero)
Margaret denied knowing the man.
At first.
Then she fainted.
A doctor examined her at the ranch house while federal agents searched the property.
When she woke, Daniel sat beside her.
Claire stood near the window.
No one wanted another partial truth.
Daniel showed her the photograph.
"Who is he?"
Margaret stared.
"I haven't seen him since I was twenty."
"Name."
"Dr. Elias Voss."
Mendez entered.
The name immediately meant something to her.
She searched federal databases.
Dr. Elias Voss.
Psychiatrist.
Former behavioral researcher.
Founder of the original Briarwood Child Development Center.
Declared dead in 2004 after a boating accident.
Body never recovered.
Claire looked at Margaret.
"You knew the founder of Briarwood."
Margaret shook her head.
"I didn't know he founded anything."
"How did you know him?"
Margaret stared at the photograph.
"When I was nineteen, I had panic attacks."
Robert and Margaret had started dating in high school.
Robert was jealous.
Controlling even then.
After one particularly bad argument, Margaret began fainting.
Her doctor referred her to Voss.
He treated her for nearly a year.
"How?"
"Therapy."
"Medication?"
"Sometimes."
"Anything else?"
Margaret hesitated.
"Memory exercises."
Claire felt sick.
"What kind?"
"I don't remember."
Daniel said bitterly, "That's convenient."
Margaret looked at him.
"I know how it sounds."
Mendez asked, "What does patient zero mean?"
Margaret shook her head.
Then Claire remembered something Dr. Crane had said.
Briarwood studied childhood trauma.
Memory reshaping.
"What if Anna wasn't the beginning?"
Mendez looked at her.
Claire pointed at Margaret.
"What if Mom was?"
Margaret went white.
Federal investigators searched historical files.
Elias Voss had published obscure academic work in the early 1980s on memory reconstruction after trauma.
One paper referenced an unnamed nineteen-year-old female patient whose conditioned responses were studied over twelve months.
Patient M-0.
Margaret.
The study ended the year before Anna was born.
Claire read the summary.
Voss believed fear could make people more susceptible to suggestion.
He also believed memories could be suppressed through repetition, isolation, medication, and controlled emotional triggers.
Daniel looked at his mother.
"Did he do this to you?"
Margaret was crying.
"I don't know."
Claire sat beside her.
"What do you remember about that year?"
"Almost nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Fragments."
"Tell us."
Margaret closed her eyes.
"A white room."
Claire felt her stomach tighten.
"A bell."
Claire touched the silver pendant around her neck.
Margaret opened her eyes.
"A red door."
Claire stopped breathing.
The same images.
Blue shoes.
Bell.
Red door.
Not random.
Conditioning cues.
Voss had used them on Margaret.
Then on Claire.
Perhaps on Anna.
Claire asked, "Did Robert know Voss?"
Margaret stared into the distance.
"I introduced them."
Robert had attended one appointment.
Afterward, he became fascinated with Voss.
The two men began meeting privately.
Margaret thought they discussed business investments.
Instead, Robert may have become part of Briarwood.
Daniel stood.
"So Dad wasn't simply using their system."
Claire looked at him.
"He learned from it."
The story began taking shape.
Robert abused Anna.
When Anna was hospitalized, Victor and Voss offered a way to erase the crime.
They transferred Anna into Briarwood.
A dead child replaced her publicly.
Years later, when Evelyn Morgan discovered the operation, Victor kidnapped Evelyn and Claire.
Claire was placed with Robert.
Perhaps not only as a replacement daughter.
Perhaps as an experiment.
Could a stolen toddler be made to forget one mother and accept another?
Claire felt nauseated.
She had been a research subject inside her own home.
That evening, federal agents received a report from Denver.
Robert Bennett had been attacked in county detention.
Another inmate tried to strangle him.
The attacker had no known connection to Robert.
But after the attack, guards found a note in the man's cell.
It said:
THE PROGRAM SURVIVES THE PARTICIPANTS.
Robert lived.
When questioned, he finally asked to speak with Claire.
Alone.
Mendez refused.
Claire insisted.
They arranged a monitored video call.
Robert appeared bruised.
For the first time in Claire's life, he looked old.
He studied her.
"You found Voss."
Claire said nothing.
Robert laughed weakly.
"You think you've found the truth."
"Where is Anna?"
"I don't know."
"Where is Evelyn?"
Robert looked away.
"Dead."
Claire's throat closed.
"You know that?"
"Yes."
"Did you kill her?"
"No."
"Who did?"
Robert stared into the camera.
"Ask your mother."
Claire froze.
Margaret was outside the room.
She could not hear.
Robert leaned closer.
"She remembers more than she says."
Claire felt anger rise.
"You're lying."
"Maybe."
"What did you do to Anna?"
Robert's eyes changed.
Regret appeared.
Or something close to it.
"I hurt her."
Claire waited.
"How?"
"I lost control."
"Once?"
Robert said nothing.
Claire swallowed disgust.
"You abused her."
He closed his eyes.
"Yes."
"Then you gave her to Briarwood."
"I thought she would be safe."
Claire laughed bitterly.
"You buried an innocent child under her name."
"That wasn't my plan."
"But you accepted it."
"Yes."
Claire stared at the man she had called Dad for thirty-two years.
"Why take me?"
Robert's face changed.
"Because Margaret was dying."
"What?"
"After Anna disappeared, your mother stopped eating. Stopped sleeping. She tried to kill herself."
Claire's anger faltered.
"Voss said another child might stabilize her."
Claire felt sick.
"I was medication."
Robert whispered, "At first."
"At first?"
"You became my daughter."
"No."
His face crumpled.
"You were."
"You taped me in that room."
"I was afraid you'd remember."
"You stole my life."
Robert closed his eyes.
"I know."
Claire leaned closer.
"Where is Anna?"
Robert opened his eyes.
"The last time I saw her was six years ago."
"Where?"
"Montana."
"Why?"
"She came to me."
"What did she want?"
"Names."
"Whose names?"
Robert looked frightened.
"The people above Voss."
Claire frowned.
"You said Voss started Briarwood."
"He did."
"But someone funded him."
Robert nodded.
"Who?"
Robert looked toward something outside the camera.
Then he whispered:
"Your mother knows the first name."
The video feed cut off.
Not disconnected by Robert.
Cut.
Mendez rushed in.
"What happened?"
A guard shouted through the remote connection.
Then another voice.
Robert had collapsed.
May you like
By the time medical staff reached him, he was convulsing.
Someone had poisoned his drinking water.
