Chapter 14 - THE MOTHER IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
Claire forgot the gun at her side.
She forgot the alarms, the guards, and the blood on the floor.
Her mother had died when Claire was eleven.
At least, that was what she had been told.
The photograph showed Eleanor Mason at approximately twenty-five years old, standing beside Victoria Bennett.
They were holding hands.
Not casually.
Intimately.
“What is this?” Claire whispered.
Richard stared at the screen.
“So that is why Victoria hid the origin file.”
Victoria pressed one hand against her wound.
“Close it.”
Richard struck her.
Vanessa moved toward her mother, but a guard blocked the way.
Claire enlarged the photograph.
A handwritten note appeared beneath it.
FOUNDERS OF THE NORTH RIVER CONTINUITY PROJECT.
ELEANOR MASON.
VICTORIA BENNETT.
RICHARD VALE.
CHARLES BENNETT.
SAMUEL HART.
Claire looked at Victoria.
“My mother helped create this?”
Victoria’s lips were pale.
“Not what it became.”
“What did it begin as?”
“A medical program for women who had lost reproductive choices.”
Richard laughed.
“Such a noble description.”
Victoria ignored him.
“Eleanor and I met in medical school. She developed an embryo preservation technique years ahead of its time.”
“My mother was a school librarian.”
“She became one after leaving North River.”
“Why did she leave?”
“Because Richard began selling access to the program.”
Richard raised the gun.
“History is written by whoever remains alive.”
Claire looked at the screen.
Another file contained patient records from the earliest trials.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Eleanor Mason.
“She was a patient?”
Victoria closed her eyes.
“She could not safely carry a pregnancy.”
Claire’s heart pounded.
“What does that have to do with me?”
No one answered.
Richard smiled slowly.
“You never wondered why there are no photographs of your mother pregnant?”
Claire’s childhood memories shifted.
There were photographs of her mother holding her as a baby.
Photographs of birthdays.
Photographs at school.
None from pregnancy.
“Who carried me?”
Victoria whispered, “I did.”
Vanessa stared at her mother.
Claire stepped backward.
“No.”
“Eleanor’s embryo was implanted into me before I married Charles.”
“You gave birth to me?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did my mother raise me?”
“Because you were hers.”
“And you?”
Victoria’s face broke.
For the first time, Claire saw grief without performance.
“I was supposed to remain your godmother. Richard discovered the arrangement and threatened to expose us. Eleanor disappeared with you.”
“My mother died in a car crash.”
“That was the official report.”
Claire looked at Richard.
“What happened to her?”
Richard lifted one shoulder.
“She refused to return research that belonged to North River.”
“You killed her.”
“I solved a risk.”
Claire lunged.
Richard caught her and pressed the gun beneath her chin.
Mara’s voice sounded from the corridor.
“Federal agents! Drop your weapons!”
Gunfire erupted outside.
The guards turned toward the door.
Vanessa grabbed a metal tray and struck one guard across the face. Sophie pulled Claire away from Richard.
Victoria reached for the gun.
Richard fired again.
The bullet struck the biometric scanner.
The screen shattered.
Sprinklers activated.
Water poured from the ceiling.
Emergency lights flashed red.
Mara and the tactical team entered through the smoke.
“Down!”
Claire dropped beside Sophie.
Vanessa crawled toward Victoria.
Richard disappeared through a rear door.
Mara pursued him.
The underground corridor split in three directions.
Thermal images showed moving figures in every section.
Some were guards.
Some were children.
Mara could not risk firing.
Richard reached an elevator and entered a code.
Before the doors closed, Mara saw Elena and Amelia inside.
Richard had taken them during the confusion.
“No!”
She fired at the control panel, but the elevator descended.
Claire reached the corridor moments later.
“Where are they?”
“He took them below.”
“There is another level?”
Victoria was carried out on a stretcher.
She raised one shaking hand.
“The original laboratory.”
“Where is the entrance?” Mara demanded.
Victoria pointed toward the broken biometric scanner.
“It only opens for a founder.”
“Richard is a founder.”
“He changed his identity years ago. The system will reject him.”
“Then how did the elevator move?”
Victoria looked at Claire.
“Because it recognized Elena.”
Vanessa knelt beside her mother.
“Why would it recognize my daughter?”
Victoria’s eyes began to close.
“Because Elena is not only your child.”
Mara grabbed her shoulder.
“Stay awake.”
Victoria looked toward Claire.
“Eleanor altered the genetic line.”
“What does that mean?”
“She hid something inside the embryos.”
Claire’s voice shook.
“What?”
“A sequence.”
“What sequence?”
“The key to everything.”
Victoria lost consciousness.
Medical teams rushed her away.
Mara examined the elevator.
A hidden panel displayed two words.
ORIGIN ACCESS.
Claire placed her hand against the scanner.
The system came alive.
WELCOME, CLAIRE MASON.
Vanessa stared at the screen.
Claire entered the elevator with Mara, Vanessa, and two tactical agents.
Sophie remained behind with the rescued children.
The elevator descended far beneath the estate.
When the doors opened, cold air swept into the car.
Rows of cryogenic chambers filled a vast underground laboratory.
Hundreds of them.
At the center stood Richard with Elena and Amelia.
Elena held the toddler protectively.
Richard aimed a gun toward the elevator.
“Another step, and the history of your family ends here.”
Claire looked beyond him.
A large chamber stood open.
Inside lay a woman connected to life-support machines.
Her face had aged.
Her hair was white.
But Claire recognized her.
The woman from every childhood memory.
The mother she had buried twenty-four years ago.
May you like
Eleanor Mason opened her eyes.
And looked directly at Claire.
