Chapter 5 - What My Mother Hid From Me
A security guard stepped from the foyer.
The gun remained pointed at the floor.
Still, I froze.
Lily did not.
“Put that away,” she snapped.
The guard hesitated.
A woman's voice came from deeper inside.
“Do as she says.”
Margaret Vale entered.
She was in her sixties, silver-haired, elegant, composed.
She looked nothing like a villain.
That frightened me.
“Claire,” she said. “At last.”
Daniel moved slightly in front of me.
Margaret smiled without warmth.
“Still pretending to protect her?”
“Stay away from my wife.”
“My goodness. You almost sound sincere.”
Lily looked between them.
“You said he worked for you.”
“He did.”
Daniel faced Lily.
“Whatever Margaret told you—”
“She showed me records.”
“So did we,” I said.
Lily looked at me.
Something softened.
“Did Eleanor really raise you?”
“She was my mother.”
“She was mine too.”
The sentence nearly destroyed me.
Not because it was wrong.
Because it was true.
Margaret invited us into the library.
I refused to sit.
“Why did you bring Lily here?”
“I didn't. She found me.”
“Then why keep her?”
“I haven't.”
Lily confirmed it.
“I can leave.”
“Then come with me.”
She shook her head.
“I need answers.”
“So do I.”
Margaret poured tea nobody touched.
“Your mother participated in a research program seventeen years ago.”
“She was pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“With your husband's child.”
Margaret's hand paused.
For the first time, composure cracked.
“Richard was not my husband then.”
Thomas had been wrong.
Margaret explained that she and Richard had divorced briefly during the period when my mother became pregnant. They later remarried.
Convenient distinction.
“What research?”
“Richard believed certain hereditary cellular markers could predict extraordinary resistance to several autoimmune diseases.”
Daniel interrupted.
“He crossed ethical lines.”
Margaret looked at him.
“So did you.”
I turned.
“What does she mean?”
Daniel stared at the floor.
Margaret answered.
“He altered Claire's records.”
My heart dropped.
“When?”
“During your fertility treatment.”
I stepped away from Daniel.
“No.”
“Claire—”
“You accessed my medical records?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I recognized the marker.”
My hands trembled.
“Our fertility clinic?”
“I wasn't working there. But the lab subcontracted screening through a company that used Vale's old database.”
“And you saw my results.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Before the embryo transfer.”
I felt physically ill.
“You knew our daughter might have this marker.”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I was trying to confirm whether it was dangerous.”
Margaret laughed softly.
Daniel snapped, “This isn't funny.”
“No. It is tragic.”
I wanted to hate Margaret.
At that moment I hated Daniel more.
I turned to Lily.
“Did they experiment on you?”
“No.”
Margaret answered before she could.
“Richard never touched her.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because Eleanor prevented it.”
My mother had discovered Richard intended to enroll the newborn in an unauthorized longitudinal study.
Ruth helped her falsify the baby's death.
June took Lily.
Margaret claimed she later discovered the truth and secretly helped finance Lily's care.
“Why?”
“Guilt.”
It was the first word from Margaret I believed.
Then Lily placed a notebook on the table.
“Eleanor left this for me.”
My mother's journal.
I reached toward it.
Lily pulled it back.
“She said I could give it to you only if something happened to Ruth.”
“Ruth died.”
“I know.”
“Then please.”
Lily studied my face.
Then handed it over.
Most pages contained ordinary observations.
But several had been marked.
One entry was dated shortly before my mother died.
Claire is trying to have a baby.
I pray she never learns what I passed to her.
Another:
Daniel knows more than he admits.
I looked at him.
He read it too.
His face went white.
Then I found the final marked page.
If Claire becomes pregnant, Margaret will eventually find out. But Margaret isn't the one I fear.
The next page had been removed.
“Who tore this out?”
Lily shook her head.
“It was like that.”
Margaret looked genuinely confused.
Then a housekeeper entered.
“Mrs. Vale?”
“What?”
“There's a man at the gate asking for Mrs. Mercer.”
“Who?”
The housekeeper swallowed.
“He says his name is Dr. Adrian Cole.”
Daniel dropped his glass.
It shattered across the floor.
I stared at him.
“Who is Adrian Cole?”
Daniel didn't answer.
Margaret did.
May you like
“The man who created Subject 17.”
The doorbell rang...
