Chapter 7 - The Guard Who Knew Her Mother
Marcus did not deny the voice was his.
Detective Cross questioned him in the library while Amelia and Adrian watched through the glass doors. He sat upright, hands folded, looking less like a security chief than a soldier awaiting sentence.
“I was twenty-one,” he said. “Rose Lane hired me to drive supplies between Saint Catherine’s and a private laboratory. I thought the project helped sick children.”
“Which daughter was dying?” Cross asked.
“Vanessa.”
Amelia entered before Cross could stop her.
“Vanessa was one of us?”
Marcus looked at her with an old sadness. “Triplets. Amelia, Mia, Vanessa. Vanessa was born with a degenerative neurological disorder. Rose designed Mirror to map healthy neural pathways from you and Mia, then guide Vanessa’s damaged brain.”
“Did it work?”
“Too well. Vanessa learned faster than expected. She absorbed patterns from both sisters. Voices. Preferences. Emotional responses. Rose believed she had saved her. Dr. Voss believed he had discovered immortality.”
Adrian stood in the doorway. “And my father?”
“He funded Voss after the hospital board shut the research down. In exchange, Voss promised to preserve the minds of powerful people.”
Amelia thought of the digital model Adrian had described. “Copies without bodies.”
“At first,” Marcus said. “Then Voss wanted bodies too.”
Cross placed the photograph of the crash on the table. “Tell us what happened nine years ago.”
Marcus lowered his eyes.
“Mia escaped the facility. She found Amelia and told her everything. They planned to expose Voss. Vanessa followed them. All three were in the car when the steering failed.”
“Three?” Amelia whispered.
“The report listed one.”
“Because your father’s people arrived before police,” Marcus told Adrian. “Amelia was injured. Mia was nearly drowned in the river after the car broke through the barrier. Vanessa walked away with minor wounds.”
“Which woman did Adrian visit in the hospital?”
Marcus looked at Amelia. “You.”
“That does not answer me.”
“I do not know which sister you were before the crash.”
Amelia’s nails pressed into her palms.
“Why did you work for Adrian’s family?”
“To protect you. Rose asked me to watch whichever daughter survived outside the program.”
“And you let them keep Mia underground.”
“I did not know she was beneath the villa. I believed she died in the river.”
Cross leaned forward. “Who released her?”
Marcus hesitated.
The lights in the library flickered. Every screen in the villa turned on at once.
Vanessa appeared live, no longer tied to the chair. She stood beside Mia in an unfamiliar room. Neither woman looked afraid.
“Thank you, Marcus,” Vanessa said. “You kept them talking long enough.”
Police rushed toward him, but Marcus had already drawn a small device from his sleeve. He pressed the button.
Metal shutters descended over every door and window.
Adrian grabbed him. “What did you do?”
Marcus did not resist.
“What Rose asked me to do twenty-three years ago,” he said. “Keep all three sisters alive.”
Mia stepped toward the camera.
“The garden party continues Saturday. Amelia will host it. Adrian will announce that he is transferring control of Hart Biotech to the Mirror Trust.”
“And if we refuse?” Amelia asked.
Vanessa smiled.
A second camera feed appeared. Noah sat asleep in his school music room, unaware that the teacher beside him was wearing an earpiece.
“We do not need to enter your house to take your son,” Vanessa said.
Amelia lunged toward the screen.
“If you touch him—”
“He is safe,” Mia said. “For now.”
The feed ended. The shutters rose.
Cross ordered officers to Noah’s school. They found him unharmed, still rehearsing for the garden party. The teacher remembered nothing unusual. Someone had replaced the school camera feed with a loop.
That night, Amelia sat at Noah’s bedside until he slept. Adrian stood in the doorway but did not enter.
“Saturday ends this,” she said.
“It may end us.”
She looked at him. “You ended us in Geneva. Saturday only decides what survives.”
After Adrian left, Noah opened his eyes.
“Mommy,” he whispered, “Aunt Vanessa gave me something.”
May you like
From beneath his pillow, he removed a key shaped like a rose.
“She said it opens the room where Grandma is still alive.”
