Chapter 3 - The Sister Who Was Never Supposed to Know
Clara read the sentence three times.
Only one of them is my granddaughter.
The photograph showed Evelyn younger, exhausted, and frightened. One infant slept against her shoulder. The other was carried by a nurse whose face had been scratched from the print. A black car waited near the clinic entrance. Victor stood beside it, looking not at his wife or the babies, but directly at the camera.
Sienna was born seven minutes before Clara. At least, that was what the family had always said.
Warren closed the hidden room's door. “Nobody outside this room hears about this until we verify it.”
Clara placed the photograph inside a protective sleeve. “My grandmother verified everything she kept.”
“She also warned you not to trust me.”
“She warned me to investigate.”
The file labeled CLARA, SUBJECT OR ASSET contained school reports, medical tests, psychological evaluations, and surveillance photographs from Clara's childhood. Some were ordinary. Others were not. One report described her response to controlled fear exposure at age six. Another measured her ability to recognize patterns under stress. A third referred to a selection program called Aegis Line.
Clara's hands tightened around the pages.
She remembered the tests, but the family had called them games. Grandmother hid coins in rooms and timed how quickly Clara found them. Men pretending to be doctors asked her to memorize strings of numbers. Victor praised Sienna's charm while criticizing Clara for being too quiet, too watchful, too difficult to deceive.
The final page was a transfer authorization signed by Margaret.
SUBJECT C is not to be surrendered to Northstar Meridian. If ordinary protections fail, activate Sterling Protocol and contact Adrian Vale.
Warren pointed at the date. “This was signed two days before Vale recruited you.”
“He told me he chose me because of my academy record.”
“Maybe he was following your grandmother's instruction.”
“Or Northstar's.”
A faint electronic chirp sounded from the ceiling.
Clara raised one finger. Everyone froze.
The chirp came again.
She climbed onto the stone table and found a listening device inside the metal frame of the portrait. It was modern, no more than a year old. The underground room had not been secret to everyone.
Morales searched for other transmitters while Clara inspected the device. Its battery was warm.
“Live?” Warren asked.
“Until thirty seconds ago.”
A heavy impact sounded above them.
Then glass shattered.
They drew their weapons and climbed the stairs. Smoke rolled through the greenhouse. A black cylindrical canister spun across the floor, releasing a chemical irritant. Warren kicked it outside. Morales moved toward the west door and was struck by a suppressed round that shattered the glass beside his head.
Clara pulled him down.
Two masked figures advanced through the garden.
They moved with professional coordination, not like thieves or hired local muscle. Clara returned fire into the stone path, forcing one behind a fountain. Warren activated his emergency beacon. The other attacker threw a small charge at the underground entrance.
“They want the files destroyed,” Clara said.
She slid behind the stone table, fired once through the greenhouse frame, and heard a cry. Warren covered the doorway while Morales dragged two field cases into the stairwell.
The charge detonated.
The floor lifted. Glass rained around them. Clara felt heat across her back, then the pressure of the ceiling collapsing. Warren seized her arm and pulled her through the side door seconds before the central beams crashed onto the hidden entrance.
The attackers withdrew toward the woods.
Clara chased them despite Warren shouting her name. One figure reached a motorcycle. The wounded attacker stumbled. Clara tackled him behind a hedge and tore away his mask.
He was not a stranger.
He was Daniel Reeve, head of security at Sterling House and the man who had opened the front door for police that morning.
Blood darkened his shirt. He smiled when he recognized her.
“You were always faster than Sienna,” he whispered.
“Who sent you?”
“Your father thinks he did.”
Clara pressed harder against the wound. “Who actually sent you?”
Reeve's smile widened. “Ask your sister why she met Vale.”
His jaw shifted.
Clara saw the movement too late. Reeve bit down on something concealed inside a rear tooth. His body convulsed. By the time Warren reached them, his pulse was gone.
Sirens approached from the main road.
Warren looked toward the smoking greenhouse. “We lost half the archive.”
“No,” Morales said, coughing as he emerged with one surviving field case. “We have this.”
Inside the case were twelve audio tapes, a stack of passports, and a sealed envelope addressed to Clara.
She opened it with a knife.
The letter was in Margaret's handwriting.
Clara,
Sienna is not your enemy because she stole what belonged to you. She is your enemy because someone convinced her that you stole her life first.
Before Clara could read the next line, Warren's radio crackled.
An officer at the station spoke in a panicked voice.
“Chief, Sienna Hale is gone. The interview room is empty. The camera shows Commander Sterling entering and releasing her.”
Warren looked at Clara standing beside him.
May you like
The radio continued.
“And sir, the woman on the recording has Commander Sterling's face.”
