CHAPTER 20 The Second Child
The smell reached us before the flames did.
Adrian threw his shoulder against the door.
It did not move.
Natalie searched the walls while I pulled Lily away from the spreading gasoline.
Catherine remained unnaturally calm.
“There is a river exit.”
“Where?” I demanded.
“Under the floor.”
She moved a fishing cabinet aside, revealing an iron ring set into the boards.
Adrian lifted the hatch.
Dark water moved beneath us.
The tunnel opened directly into the river.
“You first,” he told Lily.
She lowered herself into the water without arguing.
Natalie followed.
Flames appeared beneath the door.
Catherine hesitated.
“I cannot swim anymore.”
Adrian looked at her.
For one terrible second, I thought he might leave her.
Then he removed his coat and tied one sleeve around her waist.
“Hold on to me.”
We entered the freezing water as smoke filled the boathouse.
The current carried us beneath the stone foundation.
When I surfaced outside, my damaged leg refused to move.
Natalie caught my arm.
Adrian pulled Catherine toward the riverbank.
The boathouse windows exploded behind us.
Federal vehicles arrived minutes later.
Alvarez claimed he had not known where we were.
I believed him.
I did not believe everyone who arrived with him.
An agent named Warren Pike disappeared during the confusion.
His abandoned vehicle contained a fuel container, rope, and copies of sealed evidence photographs from the Catherine V.
Hollis still had loyal people working for him.
Perhaps more than one.
At the hospital, Catherine refused treatment until Lily had been examined.
Only after doctors confirmed we were all safe did she agree to speak.
Adrian sat across the room from her.
He had not called her Mother.
He had barely looked at her.
Catherine explained that she had given birth to a daughter two years after Adrian.
The girl’s father was not Robert.
It was Thomas Bell.
Catherine and Thomas had worked together inside Hollis’s network. Their relationship had begun after Robert agreed to cooperate with Hollis.
When Catherine became pregnant, she knew Hollis would use the child as leverage.
Samuel arranged her escape through Station Nine.
“My daughter was born under another name,” Catherine said. “Elizabeth helped raise her.”
I struggled to breathe.
“My mother?”
“She protected both of us. She moved the child whenever Hollis came close.”
“Where is she now?”
Catherine looked toward Lily.
“She has been closer than you think.”
Adrian stood.
“What is her name?”
Catherine’s eyes filled.
“I promised Elizabeth I would not say until we knew who betrayed her.”
“My mother is dead. Elizabeth is dead. Samuel is dead. Thomas has disappeared. Your promises have destroyed enough lives.”
Catherine accepted the words without defending herself.
“Her birth name was Rose.”
Adrian’s expression changed.
I knew only one woman whose middle name was Rose.
Natalie Rose Mercer.
I turned slowly.
Natalie stared at Catherine.
“No.”
Catherine began crying silently.
“You were eight months old when Elizabeth took you. Samuel placed you with a family outside Baltimore. Years later, you found your way back to the Mercer Center without knowing why.”
Natalie shook her head.
“My parents died in a car accident.”
“The people who raised you loved you,” Catherine said. “But they were not your biological parents.”
Adrian moved toward Natalie.
She stepped away from him.
“Do not.”
He stopped.
Catherine had not merely returned from the dead.
She had made Adrian and Natalie siblings.
It changed every line connecting our family.
Then Catherine revealed the part she had withheld.
“Elizabeth discovered Robert had ordered someone to kill me. She switched our travel documents. The attacker followed her instead.”
Robert had killed the wrong woman.
My mother.
“But Robert did not act alone,” Catherine said.
“Who helped him?” I asked.
She looked toward the hospital hallway.
“Someone who has remained inside your family ever since.”
Before she could say the name, a nurse entered.
Catherine’s medication had arrived.
The nurse raised the syringe.
Lily noticed the label first.
“That is not her name.”
The nurse froze.
Alvarez reached for his weapon.
The nurse drove the syringe into her own arm.
She collapsed before anyone could stop her.
Inside her pocket, we found a photograph taken that morning.
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It showed Lena entering Robert’s prison.
Alone.
