Chapter 10 - CAMILLE’S REAL NAME
Camille agreed to genetic testing.
The results were returned in less than four hours through Northstar’s emergency laboratory.
She was not Elena’s sister.
But she was related to Celeste Mercer.
The estimated relationship was niece.
Olivia searched Celeste’s family history.
Celeste had one younger sister, Marianne, who supposedly died in a boating accident at twenty-three.
No body had been recovered.
Camille’s DNA indicated Marianne was likely her biological mother.
Camille sat silently after hearing the result.
“My adoptive parents said my mother was a college student who could not keep me.”
“Did they know her name?” Elena asked.
“They said the records were sealed.”
“Did they ever mention Bellweather?”
“No.”
Camille rubbed her hands together.
“My father worked in hospital administration. He helped build Northstar. Maybe that is why they selected my parents.”
“To keep you close to medical databases,” Elena said.
Camille looked toward the window.
“So my whole life was arranged.”
Elena understood the feeling.
The identities Bellweather created were not merely documents.
They were environments.
Families.
Careers.
Relationships designed decades in advance.
Noah opened Celeste’s journal to an entry concerning Marianne.
Celeste wrote that Marianne had volunteered to infiltrate Bellweather after discovering the company’s plan for the twins.
She vanished while pregnant.
The photograph of Celeste with two teenage girls had been taken sixteen years after Marianne’s supposed death.
One girl was Elena.
The blonde was probably Camille.
Neither remembered meeting the other.
The image may have been manipulated, but the paper and ink were authentic to the period.
“I was blonde as a teenager,” Camille said quietly.
“Did you ever visit this city?” Sloane asked.
“My parents brought me here once. I remember a hotel with a red staircase.”
The Bellweather Hotel had a red marble staircase.
Camille closed her eyes.
“There was a woman who gave me a necklace.”
“The pearls?” Elena asked.
“No. A small silver locket. My parents took it away.”
“What was inside?”
“A photograph of two babies.”
Elena looked at Noah.
The network had not selected Camille recently.
It had followed her since childhood.
The hotel meeting was not simply about forcing two women into the same place.
It was bringing Celeste’s bloodline back to where Bellweather began.
Sloane received a call from his team.
Victor’s financial records revealed payments to judges, hospital administrators, passport officials, and private security companies.
More importantly, MirrorID had purchased Bellweather Hotel through a shell company six months earlier.
“We have enough for warrants,” Sloane said.
“Then arrest Victor,” Elena answered.
“He is missing.”
“His office?”
“Empty.”
“His home?”
“Empty.”
Noah looked at the clock.
“Victor will be at the hotel.”
“Why?” Sloane asked.
“He believes the archive can only be opened there.”
Elena remembered the schedule.
Identity convergence at midnight.
“We follow the schedule,” she said.
Sloane shook his head.
“No.”
“We know Victor is expecting us. That gives us one advantage.”
“It gives him every advantage.”
“Only if he believes we are still divided.”
Elena looked at Camille.
“We let him believe Camille has agreed to replace me.”
Camille’s eyes widened.
“How?”
“The divorce papers require a witness. Noah will tell Victor that you signed them.”
Noah understood.
“And I tell him Elena has agreed to exchange the archive for her legal identity.”
Sloane crossed his arms.
“You want to walk into a building controlled by a man connected to several disappearances.”
“With police nearby.”
“The hotel blocks signals.”
“Then we place the transmitter somewhere he will not search.”
Camille looked at the pearls.
“The clasp.”
The storage chip had been removed, leaving a space large enough for a miniature transmitter.
Sloane still appeared unconvinced.
Elena moved closer.
“If we do nothing, Victor disappears. My sister remains hidden. Every woman in those storage files continues living under a stolen identity or disappears entirely.”
“This is not your responsibility.”
“My face is on their passports.”
“That does not make you responsible.”
“No. It makes me useful.”
Noah flinched at the word.
Celeste had written that Eleanor was raised to believe she was necessary.
Elena wondered whether she was repeating the same pattern.
She looked at Camille.
“You do not have to come.”
Camille gave a humorless smile.
“I spent six months believing Noah chose me.”
She glanced at him.
“I would like to be present when he finally chooses the truth.”
Noah accepted the contempt in her voice.
“I will do whatever is required.”
Elena faced him.
“You will not improvise. You will not protect me by lying. You will not make secret arrangements.”
“I understand.”
“If Victor asks you to choose between me and evidence that can expose Bellweather, what will you do?”
Noah looked at her for a long moment.
“I will choose the evidence.”
Camille appeared surprised.
Elena was not.
For the first time, Noah had given the answer she needed rather than the one he thought sounded loving.
“Good,” Elena said. “Because our marriage is not what we are saving tonight.”
As the group prepared to leave, Camille’s phone received a message from an unknown number.
The message contained no text.
Only a photograph.
It showed Camille entering the Bellweather Hotel as a teenager.
Beside her was a dark-haired girl with Elena’s face.
The girl held Camille’s hand.
May you like
In the reflection of the glass doors stood Celeste.
And behind Celeste was a younger Victor Hale.
