Chapter 15 - The Woman Behind the Glass
The chamber beyond the steel door was colder than the rest of the underground facility.
Lights switched on one row at a time, revealing a narrow laboratory, medical storage cabinets, and a wall of old video monitors.
There was no treasure.
No pile of stolen money.
Only evidence.
Vanessa remained under federal supervision near the entrance. Adrian had been taken upstairs in restraints, shouting that the chamber belonged to him.
Emily, Daniel, Celeste, and Marcus entered with two investigators.
At the center of the room stood a table holding three sealed boxes.
The first contained Margaret Ashbourne’s original medical records.
The second contained DNA reports for Emily, Vanessa, Celeste, Adrian, Alexander, and several names none of them recognized.
The third contained a collection of video tapes labeled by date.
Marcus selected the earliest recording.
October 14, 1998.
A hospital room appeared on the monitor.
Celeste lay unconscious in a bed.
A younger Eleanor Ashbourne stood beside two infant cradles.
Two babies.
Emily felt Celeste grip the table.
“I never saw both of them.”
Margaret entered the recording with a bandage around her head. She was alive but struggling to stand.
She lifted one baby.
Eleanor lifted the other.
A doctor spoke from outside the camera’s view.
“Adrian is in the building.”
Eleanor answered, “Then begin the transfer.”
Margaret looked directly toward the hidden camera.
“If one child is found, the other must remain unknown.”
The doctor asked, “Which child goes to the Carters?”
Eleanor looked down at the infants.
Before she could answer, the recording distorted.
The image returned several minutes later.
One cradle was empty.
The second baby wore a hospital bracelet labeled Vanessa Vale.
Celeste whispered, “That is the certificate.”
Marcus opened the DNA reports.
He read silently, then stopped.
“What is it?” Daniel asked.
“The results are incomplete.”
“Incomplete how?”
“Several pages have been removed.”
Vanessa laughed from the doorway.
“Of course they have.”
Emily turned toward her.
Vanessa’s expression was exhausted.
“Adrian came here before the gala,” she said. “He took whatever proved who we were.”
“Where did he put it?” Marcus asked.
“He never told me.”
Celeste approached Vanessa.
“Did he say which of you was my daughter?”
Vanessa looked at Emily.
“He said blood was the least important part.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It was the only answer he gave.”
Daniel examined the remaining reports.
“One sample is marked EVC.”
“Eleanor Victoria Ashbourne,” Marcus said.
Emily frowned.
“Why would Eleanor’s DNA be compared with ours?”
No one answered.
Another monitor turned on by itself.
A live video feed appeared.
It showed a private room with white walls.
An elderly woman sat in a chair with her back to the camera.
A digital timestamp in the corner displayed the current date and time.
“This is live,” Marcus said.
The woman slowly turned.
Celeste dropped the file in her hand.
Daniel stopped breathing.
Emily had seen the woman’s face in dozens of photographs and in the testimony played during the gala.
It was Eleanor Ashbourne.
She appeared older, frailer, but unmistakably alive.
“That’s impossible,” Daniel whispered.
Eleanor Ashbourne had been declared dead sixteen years earlier.
The woman on the screen leaned toward the camera.
“Emily,” she said.
The investigators checked the system, but the signal was encrypted and routed through multiple countries.
Eleanor continued.
“If you opened this chamber, Adrian has failed to keep you divided.”
Emily stepped closer to the monitor.
“Where are you?”
The woman seemed unable to hear her.
“This message will activate only after both surviving daughters enter the facility.”
Emily looked at Vanessa.
Vanessa stared back.
Both surviving daughters.
Celeste covered her mouth.
Eleanor’s voice continued.
“One of you carries Celeste’s blood.”
Vanessa’s eyes filled with fear.
“The other carries mine.”
Daniel moved toward the screen.
“What does that mean?”
A map appeared beside Eleanor.
A red point flashed in northern Canada.
Then a second red point appeared in Switzerland.
Then another in Argentina.
Multiple locations.
Multiple signals.
Eleanor looked directly into the camera.
“Adrian was not the beginning of this deception. He was only the child who learned how to profit from it.”
The steel door slammed shut behind them.
Emergency locks engaged.
The monitors changed at once.
Each screen displayed a different live room.
In one room sat Eleanor.
In another sat a woman who looked exactly like Margaret Ashbourne.
In a third stood a man with Daniel’s face.
The final monitor remained dark.
Then white letters appeared.
SUBJECT 4 HAS ENTERED ASHBOURNE MANSION.
Daniel’s phone vibrated.
The mansion’s security system had detected someone using the silver key at the ballroom archive.
But the key was still inside the steel door beside them.
Emily opened the live security feed.
A woman stood alone beneath the mansion chandelier.
She wore Emily’s maid uniform.
She carried Emily’s brown leather handbag.
And from behind, she looked exactly like Emily.
The woman turned toward the camera.
Her face was hidden beneath a black veil.
She placed the diamond necklace on the marble floor and raised a photograph toward the lens.
The photograph showed Ruth and Thomas Carter standing outside Eleanor House.
Between them was a young girl Emily had never seen.
On the back of the image, written in Eleanor’s handwriting, were six words.
EMILY CARTER WAS NOT THE CHILD.
The veiled woman removed one glove.
Around her wrist was the hospital bracelet labeled Baby Margaret Ashbourne.
Then she spoke into the mansion camera.
May you like
“Tell Emily I have been waiting thirty years to meet the woman who stole my life.”
The security feed cut to black.
