Chapter 6 - The Photograph Taken Seventeen Years Ago
Dr. Adrian Cole did not look dangerous.
He looked exhausted.
Seventy, perhaps.
Thin.
Gray suit.
Hands trembling from age or fear.
Margaret refused him entry.
I overruled her.
“He came for me.”
Daniel grabbed my arm.
“Claire, this man disappeared after Vale shut down the program.”
Cole heard him.
“I disappeared because your former employers tried to bury me.”
He looked at me.
Then at Lily.
His eyes filled with tears.
“You survived.”
Lily stiffened.
“Don't look at me like that.”
“I'm sorry.”
“You don't know me.”
“No.”
Cole removed a photograph.
The same hospital.
My mother.
Ruth.
But this photograph included a third person.
Cole.
And behind them, through a glass window, stood my father.
The man who raised me.
“What was Dad doing there?”
Cole looked surprised.
“You don't know?”
Apparently those three words had become the theme of my life.
My father had known everything.
Not only about Lily.
About the pregnancy.
About Richard.
About the false death.
He helped my mother.
“Why?”
“Because he loved her,” Cole said.
Simple.
Devastating.
My parents' marriage had survived something I never knew existed.
Cole explained that Subject 17 was not created through genetic engineering, as Lily feared.
She had been conceived naturally.
The “subject” designation came afterward.
Richard Vale wanted to study a rare marker inherited through my mother's family.
“What does it do?” I asked.
“In most people? Perhaps nothing.”
“Then why all this?”
“Because Richard believed it could be commercially valuable.”
Daniel shook his head.
“He wasn't studying disease resistance. He was studying regenerative response.”
Cole looked at him.
“You found the later files.”
“Yes.”
Margaret sat silently.
I watched her.
“You knew?”
“Not then.”
Cole continued.
Lily's blood had demonstrated an unusual cellular response during routine newborn testing.
Richard became obsessed.
My mother refused consent.
That was when everything escalated.
“Why photograph Lily for seventeen years?”
“To confirm she remained healthy.”
“That's surveillance.”
“Yes.”
“Who ordered it?”
Cole hesitated.
“Not Richard.”
The room changed.
“Who?”
Before he answered, his phone vibrated.
He read the screen.
Fear crossed his face.
“We need to leave.”
“Why?”
“They found me.”
“Who?”
He grabbed his briefcase.
Daniel blocked him.
“You don't get to appear after seventeen years and disappear again.”
Cole looked at me.
“Your mother's death wasn't natural.”
My breath stopped.
Mom had died after a sudden stroke.
Or so we had been told.
“What are you saying?”
“She was preparing to expose everything.”
Thomas had arrived behind us.
He whispered, “Adrian.”
Cole turned.
The two men stared at each other.
They knew each other.
Of course they did.
“How many people in my life were part of this?” I demanded.
Thomas lowered his head.
“Too many.”
Cole handed me a key.
Small.
Brass.
A number stamped into it.
“What does this open?”
“Your mother left something at Union Station.”
“A locker?”
“Not exactly.”
A vehicle screeched outside.
Security alarms sounded.
Margaret moved toward the window.
Cole grabbed my shoulders.
“Listen carefully. Do not trust anyone who tells you the research ended seventeen years ago.”
Daniel pulled him away from me.
A guard rushed in.
“Mrs. Vale, we need everyone downstairs.”
“Why?”
“Someone breached the east gate.”
Cole looked toward the back exit.
Then at me.
“Locker 314.”
He ran.
I followed him into the corridor.
“Wait!”
A crash came from outside.
By the time we reached the terrace, Cole was gone.
His car remained.
Driver's door open.
Engine running.
On the driver's seat was his briefcase.
Daniel opened it.
Empty.
Except for one photograph.
It showed Daniel and me on our wedding day.
Taken from far away.
On the back someone had written:
PHASE TWO BEGAN HERE.
I looked at Daniel.
“What is phase two?”
His face told me he knew.
Before he could answer, Lily screamed from inside.
We ran back.
The journal was open on the library floor.
A page that had not been there before had been slipped inside.
It contained my mother's handwriting.
One sentence.
Claire's husband was chosen before she ever met him.
Daniel stared at it.
Then Thomas whispered, “Tell her the rest.”
May you like
Daniel closed his eyes.
And finally said, “My father worked with Richard Vale.”
