Chapter 6 - Apartment 6C
The recreated apartment contained details no police photograph should have preserved. A chip in the yellow mug. A pencil mark beside the pantry where Elena had measured herself during pregnancy. A cookbook opened to the soup she made whenever Megan was sick. Whoever rebuilt the room had either known Elena intimately or studied her life with obsessive patience. Megan realized the apartment was not only a hiding place. It was a message: your memories belong to us too. That violation frightened her more than the gas.
The building looked ordinary from the alley.
Rain had begun, glossing the fire escapes and turning the dumpsters into dark shapes beneath the security lights. Megan wore a maintenance jacket over Clara’s carrier. Marcus carried a toolbox. Cross entered through the front as a health inspector, leaving them to climb the service stairs.
At the fourth floor, Megan heard footsteps above.
Marcus raised one hand.
They waited.
A door opened. Someone descended quickly, passed the landing, and continued toward the alley exit. Megan caught only a glimpse: gray hood, narrow shoulders, a ring with a red stone.
The same ring Olivia Dane had worn on television.
Marcus started after the figure, but Clara made a soft sound. The person below paused.
Marcus pulled Megan into the shadow behind a utility cabinet.
The stairwell remained silent for five seconds.
Then the exit door slammed.
“Was that Olivia?” Megan whispered.
“I don’t know.”
“You saw the ring.”
“I saw a ring.”
“You are very cautious for a man who asked a stranger to impersonate his wife.”
“That was tactical desperation.”
“That was insanity.”
“Both can be true.”
Despite herself, Megan almost laughed.
They reached the sixth floor. Apartment 6C stood at the end of the hall, its door newly painted, the brass number polished. Megan had not entered since the landlord cleared Elena’s furniture.
Now the door was open one inch.
Marcus drew a small flashlight but no weapon.
“You’re unarmed?” she asked.
“I was arrested on an airplane.”
“Fair.”
He pushed the door with the toolbox.
Inside, the apartment had been reconstructed.
Elena’s green sofa stood beneath the window. Her yellow tea mug rested on the table. Framed photographs lined the shelf exactly as they had on the week she died. Even the lavender candle on the mantel had been burned to the same height.
Megan could not breathe.
“This is not possible.”
Marcus scanned the room. “Do not touch anything.”
A baby monitor crackled on the kitchen counter.
Then Elena’s voice spoke.
“Megan, you always touch the photographs first.”
Megan froze with her hand inches from a frame.
The recording continued. “So don’t. The shelf is wired.”
Marcus shone the flashlight beneath it. A thin copper line ran toward the wall.
“Pressure alarm,” he said.
Megan stared at the baby monitor. “She planned this.”
“Or someone is using her recordings.”
The distinction hurt.
Clara woke and looked around the apartment where her mother had once lived. She reached toward the green sofa.
A second recording began.
“If Clara is with you, play her the lullaby.”
Megan’s eyes filled. Elena had sung the same four-note melody every night. Megan hummed it now, barely audible.
The wall behind the sofa clicked.
Marcus moved the furniture aside. A narrow compartment opened near the baseboard, revealing a waterproof case.
Inside lay a tablet, a keycard, and a sealed envelope addressed to Megan.
She opened the envelope with shaking hands.
Meg,
I am sorry I made you carry what I was too afraid to explain. Clara is not in danger because of what I found. She is in danger because of who her father is.
Megan stopped reading.
She had never known the father’s name. Elena had claimed it was a brief relationship with a consultant who wanted no involvement.
Marcus read the line over her shoulder and went pale.
“You know,” Megan said.
“I suspected.”
“Who?”
Before he could answer, the tablet lit up.
A live video appeared.
Olivia Dane sat in a dark room, facing the camera.
“Megan,” she said, “if you are watching this, Commander Reed has already lied to you about Clara’s father.”
Marcus reached for the tablet.
Megan pulled it away.
Olivia continued. “The man who ordered Elena’s death is the same man whose blood runs through that child.”
A photograph appeared on the screen.
Rear Admiral Thomas Vale stood beside Elena at a Meridian charity gala, his hand resting possessively at the small of her back.
Megan felt the room tilt.
“No,” she whispered.
Olivia’s recorded face leaned closer.
“Clara is Thomas Vale’s daughter.”
The apartment door slammed shut behind them.
May you like
A lock engaged.
From the kitchen, gas began hissing into the room.
