Chapter 12 - THE WOMAN BENEATH THE HOSPITAL
Sebastian survived the poisoning but fell into a coma.
Federal agents raided the abandoned lower levels of Saint Orison Hospital.
They found sealed medical rooms, surveillance files, and evidence that patients had been held there as recently as two weeks earlier.
They did not find Eleanor.
In one room, however, they discovered a message carved into the wall.
CLARA, TRUST THE HOUSEKEEPER.
ROSE, TRUST NO ONE WHO KNEW YOUR NAME BEFORE YOU DID.
Ivy read the words twice.
Thomas had called her Rose upon awakening.
Margaret knew her name.
Ellen learned it from Margaret.
Sebastian knew it.
So did the dying intruder.
Any one of them might be the person Evelyn had placed near her.
The investigation turned inward.
Julian ordered background checks on everyone.
Thomas’s history contained unexplained gaps.
Ellen had received regular cash deposits from an offshore account.
Arthur Bell’s father had helped create shell companies used by Meridian.
Dr. Helena Marrow had disappeared for seventeen years after the fire.
Even Julian had once worked for a security contractor indirectly funded by Whitmore Industries.
Celeste trusted no one completely.
Except Ivy.
Five weeks passed.
The sisters stayed together under guard.
Ivy’s thirteenth birthday approached.
Her dreams became stronger.
She saw corridors she had never entered.
Numbers appeared in reflections.
A woman’s voice whispered coordinates while singing a lullaby.
Celeste experienced matching fragments.
Where Ivy dreamed of a red door, Celeste saw the brass key.
Where Celeste remembered a train platform, Ivy remembered the destination board.
They began constructing a map.
The route led from Bellhaven to an abandoned hydroelectric station sixty miles north.
Helena studied the map.
“The archive may be beneath the reservoir.”
“The red door under water,” Ivy said.
Julian arranged a discreet survey of the station.
Before the team could depart, Margaret returned.
She appeared at the guesthouse gate shortly before dawn.
Her clothes were torn. A bandage covered one side of her head. She carried the stolen black storage drive from the chapel.
Celeste rushed outside.
“Where have you been?”
Margaret collapsed into her arms.
“I’m sorry, Clara.”
“Stop calling me Clara as though you have the right to use the name you helped erase.”
Margaret flinched.
“You’re right.”
Ivy stood near the doorway.
“Did Evelyn take you?”
Margaret looked at her.
“No.”
“Then why did you disappear?”
“To make her believe I had the drive.”
“But you did have it.”
“This is a copy.”
Margaret gave the drive to Julian.
“The original contains the complete list of Meridian children.”
“Where is it?”
“I gave it to someone I trusted.”
“Who?”
Margaret looked toward Ellen.
“Her.”
Everyone turned.
Ellen shook her head.
“You gave me an empty metal case.”
“It was not empty.”
“I opened it.”
Margaret’s expression changed.
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
“That wasn’t the same case.”
Ellen stepped backward.
“I don’t understand.”
“You were supposed to receive it yesterday.”
“I haven’t seen you in six years.”
Margaret looked horrified.
“Then someone has been pretending to be you.”
Julian ordered the house sealed.
He asked Ellen to submit fingerprints and blood samples.
Ellen agreed immediately.
The results arrived hours later.
The woman who had raised Ivy for six years was genetically related to Thomas Reed.
But she was not Ellen Reed.
Thomas stared at the report.
“That’s impossible.”
The woman began trembling.
“What does it mean?”
Julian placed an old photograph on the table.
It showed Thomas with his wife before his disappearance.
The real Ellen had a small crescent-shaped scar beside her right ear.
The woman in the guesthouse did not.
Thomas approached her slowly.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Ellen.”
“No.”
“I remember our wedding.”
“Where?”
“Saint Mary’s Church.”
“It burned down before we met.”
The woman covered her face.
“I don’t know why I said that.”
Helena examined her.
A surgical scar was hidden beneath her hairline.
Someone had altered her face.
Someone had given her Ellen’s memories.
Ivy backed against the wall.
The woman who had raised her looked more terrified than anyone.
“I love you,” she told Ivy. “Whatever they did to me, that part is real.”
Ivy wanted to believe her.
Then Julian’s computer sounded.
The storage drive had finished decoding.
A list of Meridian subjects appeared.
Subject 001: Clara Vale.
Subject 002: Rose Vale.
Subject 003: Evelyn Whitmore.
Subject 004: Ellen Reed.
Subject 005: Margaret Vale.
The fifth name shocked them all.
Margaret looked at the screen.
“I was never a subject.”
Helena’s face turned gray.
“You were.”
“When?”
“When you were a child.”
Margaret shook her head.
“That is impossible.”
Helena pointed to a date.
The experiment began in 1958.
Margaret would have been six.
Beneath the first five names was a sixth entry.
Subject 006: Identity unknown.
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Status: Active.
Location: Inside the Vale family.
