Chapter 10 - The Sister Who Never Existed
I had no sister.
Every family record showed I was an only child.
My mother insisted those records were false.
“Her name was Emily,” she said. “She was three years older than you.”
“Why don’t I remember her?”
“Because of the treatment.”
“Why is she absent from every photograph?”
“Richard removed her.”
“Why?”
“Because she was the first child placed in Project Sable.”
I stood beside the window, unable to look at my mother.
“How could you allow that?”
“I didn’t know at first.”
“She was your daughter.”
“Richard told me she had been sent to a neurological clinic. She suffered seizures and memory loss after an illness. I believed she was receiving treatment.”
“For how long?”
“Six months.”
“And then?”
“She came home different.”
My mother described a child who no longer recognized her parents, who woke screaming from dreams, who sometimes spoke about events she could not possibly have witnessed.
Richard claimed the confusion was temporary.
Then Emily vanished.
“He told me she died during a seizure,” my mother said.
“Did you see her body?”
“No.”
“Did you see a grave?”
“There was a funeral.”
“With an empty coffin?”
My mother began crying.
“I was weak.”
“No. You chose not to ask.”
Vanessa touched my arm.
I pulled away, not because I blamed her, but because I could not bear contact.
Detective Bennett placed a photograph on the table.
It showed Dr. Evelyn Voss speaking at a medical conference.
She appeared to be in her early fifties. Dark hair framed a composed face. Her eyes were unmistakable.
They looked like mine.
“She entered the house,” my mother said. “She replaced the medication.”
“Why would she try to kill you?” I asked.
“To force your memories to return.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Extreme emotional shock was part of Vale’s reversal theory. He believed certain memories could be recovered if the mind experienced an event similar to the original trauma.”
“What trauma?”
My mother’s voice became almost inaudible.
“You once saw Richard hold Emily’s head beneath water.”
The bedroom disappeared.
For a heartbeat, I was somewhere else.
White tile.
A glass tank.
A girl fighting beneath the surface.
My father standing over her.
A younger version of myself pounding on a locked door.
Then the memory vanished.
I staggered backward.
Vanessa caught me before I fell.
“She knew I would come home,” I said.
Detective Bennett frowned. “Who?”
“Emily. Evelyn. Whatever her name is. She knew my meeting would be canceled.”
“How?”
“She arranged it.”
I called my office.
The canceled meeting had involved a medical investment group.
The representative who requested the delay worked for the Vale Foundation.
This had been planned.
Not merely the attack.
My arrival.
My reaction.
My mother’s words.
Everything.
That evening, Vanessa discovered a hidden file in the recorder.
It was protected by a six-digit password.
We tried birthdays, dates, names, and numbers connected to Project Sable.
Nothing worked.
Then I remembered the dream.
The girl on the dock.
She had whispered something after giving me the key.
I closed my eyes and concentrated.
Ice.
Black water.
Her small hand holding mine.
“Three died,” she whispered. “Seven broke. Thirteen remained.”
I entered 371013.
The file opened.
A video appeared.
The quality was poor, recorded from an old security camera.
The date was three days before my father’s death.
Richard Hale stood inside the white room with Thomas Reed, Elena Cole, Adrian Vale, and my mother.
Two children sat behind the glass.
Vanessa and me.
Thomas slammed a folder onto a table.
“I’m going to the authorities,” he said.
Richard answered, “You’ll destroy the company.”
“You destroyed it when you used children.”
Elena stepped between them.
“We can sell the formula and disappear.”
Thomas stared at her. “You were paid to protect the patients.”
“I am protecting our future.”
Adrian Vale stood silently near the door.
Then my mother spoke.
“The children remember too much.”
Richard looked at her.
“What are you suggesting?”
My mother’s recorded voice was calm.
“Treat them again.”
The video ended.
Vanessa stepped away from the screen.
I looked at my mother.
May you like
She had not merely known.
She had ordered the procedure that erased us.
