Chapter 15 - The Man Outside the Nursery)
Ethan read the page three times. Margaret had always claimed she carried him, but hospital photographs showed her visibly pregnant. The registry suggested the pregnancy had been an implantation and that even she might not have known the father’s identity.
Ruiz tested the paper and confirmed it came from Helen’s registry. The package bore no usable prints. Prison logs showed Margaret had communicated with no one outside her legal team.
Noah decoded SUBJECT ZERO against Charles’s archived research. It referred to the program’s earliest adult donor, a man whose cells displayed an unusual capacity for tissue repair. All identifying records had been erased after a laboratory fire in 1989.
The team decided not to chase another ghost without evidence. They gave the page to federal investigators and returned to their lives.
That night, Claire placed baby Helen in her crib. Every door in Blackwood House stood open. Warm light filled the halls. Ethan checked the nursery window, kissed his daughter, and went downstairs to make tea.
The baby monitor crackled.
Claire looked at its screen.
A tall man stood outside the nursery door.
He had silver hair, a scar behind his right ear, and Ethan’s eyes.
Claire spun around. The hallway was empty.
On the monitor, the man entered the room. He leaned over Helen’s crib but did not touch her. Instead, he looked directly into the camera.
“Tell Margaret,” he whispered, “that Subject Zero is alive.”
The screen went black.
Ethan ran upstairs. Together they searched the house and grounds. No window was broken. No alarm had sounded. The nursery recording had erased itself, leaving only a single frozen frame.
Ruiz arrived before midnight. When she saw the man’s face, she became very still.
“You know him,” Claire said.
Ruiz locked the nursery door and drew the curtains.
“I know who the world believes he is.”
“Then tell us.”
Before she could answer, every phone in Blackwood House rang at once.
Claire picked up the nearest receiver.
At first she heard only breathing.
Then Margaret spoke from inside the maximum-security prison.
“Claire, take the children and run. The stain on that sheet was never Ethan’s blood.”
The line went dead.
In the nursery, baby Helen opened her eyes.
May you like
They were no longer brown.
They were silver.
