Chapter 10 - THE WOMAN WHO REFUSED TO STAY DEAD
The gas smelled faintly sweet.
Thomas covered his mouth.
“Sedative.”
Daniel pulled his shirt over his face.
Richard moved toward a cabinet near the wall.
He knew where the emergency masks were.
I grabbed him.
He struck my arm away.
Daniel slammed him into the glass.
“Open the cabinet.”
Richard laughed.
“You need me alive.”
“Not conscious.”
Thomas forced the cabinet open with the gun handle.
Inside were four respirator masks.
We took three.
Richard reached for the fourth.
Daniel held it away.
“Open the hatch.”
Richard’s eyes watered.
“You will not leave without me.”
“Then you should hurry.”
Richard entered a code into the control panel.
Invalid.
He tried another.
Invalid.
Someone else controlled the room.
The lights turned red.
A speaker activated.
Eleanor’s voice filled the nursery.
“Richard.”
He froze.
“You have spent thirty years believing this tower belonged to you.”
The gas thickened.
Eleanor continued.
“It never did.”
A hidden panel opened behind the padded chamber.
Fresh air rushed through.
We moved toward it.
Richard followed.
Daniel blocked him.
I looked at the man who had kidnapped our daughter, drugged his mother, and built his life on stolen names.
Part of me wanted to leave him.
Then Eleanor spoke again.
“Bring him, Claire.”
I hated that she knew what I was considering.
Daniel shoved Richard through the opening.
We entered a service lift hidden inside the tower walls.
The panel closed behind us.
Air vents cleared the gas.
Richard sank against the wall, coughing.
Thomas removed his mask.
“Eleanor built this escape route?”
Richard wiped his eyes.
“Evelyn did.”
The lift descended.
A small screen came on.
Eleanor appeared from the hospital.
Her breathing was labored.
“You have the vial,” she said.
I held it up.
“What is it?”
“Evelyn’s blood.”
“Why?”
“It contains a genetic marker created during Meridian.”
“Created?”
“Yes.”
“What did the program do to her?”
Eleanor looked toward Richard.
“He knows.”
Richard said nothing.
Daniel grabbed his coat.
“Speak.”
Richard looked at the vial.
“Meridian used viral vectors to influence memory formation.”
Thomas stared at him.
“You performed gene therapy on children before it was legal.”
“We performed research.”
“You altered them.”
Richard’s voice hardened.
“We gave them enhanced retention.”
“At what cost?” I asked.
“Some experienced neurological damage.”
“Some?”
“Most.”
The lift continued downward.
I looked at Eleanor on the screen.
“Was I part of the program?”
“Yes.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
I felt strangely calm.
Perhaps the truth had become too large to absorb.
“What did they do to me?”
Eleanor’s voice softened.
“Nothing succeeded.”
Richard laughed weakly.
“That is what she believes.”
Eleanor ignored him.
“Evelyn removed you before the primary procedure.”
“Then why does the case recognize me?”
“Because your patient number was entered before your escape.”
“And Margaret?”
Eleanor looked away.
“Margaret remained.”
The lift stopped at floor thirty-two.
The door opened into a data center.
Rows of servers stretched through a chilled room.
A woman stood at the far end.
She wore a dark coat.
A scar crossed one side of her face.
The same scar from the video.
I could not move.
Aunt Evelyn looked older than my mother.
Older than Eleanor.
But her eyes were familiar.
I had seen them in the mirror every morning of my life.
“Claire,” she said.
My mother’s sister.
My biological mother.
The woman whose grave I had visited since childhood.
I stepped out of the lift.
“You’re alive.”
“Yes.”
“Where have you been?”
“Trying to make sure you stayed alive too.”
“You let us mourn you.”
Pain crossed her face.
“I know.”
“You let Mary believe her sister was dead.”
“I know.”
“You let me believe my mother was someone I barely remembered.”
“You remembered more than was safe.”
I stopped several feet from her.
Richard remained inside the lift.
His face had changed.
Not anger.
Fear.
Evelyn looked at him.
“You became exactly what your father wanted.”
Richard’s voice was quiet.
“You should have stayed hidden.”
“You should have left my daughter alone.”
“Which daughter?”
The question struck the room.
Evelyn’s eyes moved toward me.
The recording had said only one of Patients 216 and 217 was her daughter.
“Tell me,” I said.
She looked at Eleanor’s image on the screen.
“You promised.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“I promised to protect both girls.”
“By giving my daughter the trust?”
“By forcing the truth into daylight.”
I stepped closer to Evelyn.
“Am I your daughter?”
“Yes.”
She answered without hesitation.
Relief and pain collided inside me.
“Then why did the recording say only one patient was yours?”
“Because Margaret was not Eleanor’s daughter.”
Eleanor’s face tightened.
Evelyn continued.
“We exchanged the patient identities.”
Richard stared at her.
“No.”
“You never knew which child received the Meridian treatment.”
“You are lying.”
“You tested Margaret for years believing she was Patient 216.”
“She was.”
“No. Claire was 216.”
I looked at the vial.
The label read E.B.
“And Patient 217?”
“Margaret.”
Thomas moved closer.
“Why switch the numbers?”
“To make Richard study the wrong child.”
Daniel looked at Evelyn.
“What happened to the real Margaret?”
“She survived Meridian.”
“My mother died.”
“She is not your mother.”
“The woman who raised me.”
“Yes.”
“Is she alive?”
Evelyn looked toward the server rows.
“She was alive six months ago.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“Where is she?”
“Inside a Whitmore research facility called Haven.”
Richard laughed.
“Haven does not exist.”
Evelyn touched a keyboard.
A map appeared across the central screen.
A remote coastal island flashed red.
“Haven exists.”
Thomas studied the map.
“Private medical center?”
“Officially.”
“What is it actually?”
“A place where Whitmore Medical keeps people who are supposed to be dead.”
I thought of the false death declarations.
The empty coffins.
The substituted identities.
“How many?”
“Eighty-three.”
Eleanor’s voice came through the screen.
“Evelyn, there is no more time.”
“I know.”
She inserted the digital drive from the metal case into the server.
Files began copying.
Richard moved.
He grabbed Thomas’s gun.
A shot struck a server.
Sparks exploded.
Daniel tackled him.
Evelyn pulled me behind a cabinet.
The two men fought near the lift.
Thomas tried to regain the weapon.
Richard fired again.
The bullet struck Thomas in the chest.
He fell.
Evelyn screamed his name.
Daniel drove Richard against the wall.
The gun slid away.
I ran to Thomas.
Blood spread beneath his shirt.
I pressed my hands against the wound.
“Stay with me.”
He looked at Evelyn.
“I kept the promise.”
She knelt beside him.
“No. You still owe me thirty-one years.”
He smiled faintly.
“You never wanted them.”
The server alarm began.
Evelyn looked at the file transfer.
Seventy-eight percent.
Richard broke free from Daniel and struck the emergency shutdown.
The screens went dark.
The transfer stopped.
Then every phone in the room vibrated.
A message appeared.
TRUST ACTIVATION IN 90 MINUTES.
BOARD VOTE REQUIRED.
Daniel looked at Vanessa’s earlier statement.
He was still a board member.
I was the beneficiary.
Eleanor had four votes.
Richard had seven.
The twelfth vote belonged to Daniel.
“We need the board,” I said.
Evelyn shook her head.
“Richard already has them.”
“Then how do we activate the trust?”
She looked at the blood vial in my hand.
“With the one person Richard believes is dead.”
“Margaret?”
“No.”
May you like
Evelyn’s eyes moved toward Thomas.
“The real George Whitmore.”
