CHAPTER 26 The Third Sister
The third woman looked weaker than Lena and Evelyn.
Her hair had been shaved near one temple, revealing a surgical scar.
She stared at Catherine without recognition.
“What is her name?” Catherine asked.
Margaret answered calmly.
“Grace.”
Catherine shook her head.
“No. I delivered one child.”
“You delivered three. Dr. Reeves told you only one survived.”
Catherine gripped the platform railing.
Margaret had separated the infants.
Lena had been placed with a protected family.
Evelyn had been raised by Hollis.
Grace had remained hidden for experimentation.
Memory treatment.
Identity conditioning.
The same system once used on me.
Warren pushed Lily closer to the train car.
“Keys.”
Catherine and I placed them on the platform.
Margaret ordered Evelyn to collect them.
Evelyn stepped from the train.
Her eyes moved toward Warren.
Something passed between them.
Fear.
Not loyalty.
Evelyn picked up the keys.
Then she threw one toward Adrian’s tunnel entrance.
Gunfire struck the platform lights.
Darkness swallowed the terminal.
I dropped to the ground.
Catherine pulled Lily behind a steel pillar.
Adrian’s team entered from the tunnel.
Warren fired toward them.
Evelyn attacked him from behind.
The two struggled near the edge of the platform.
A train engine started.
Margaret was escaping.
Natalie ran toward the car containing Grace.
I reached Lily and cut the restraint around her wrist.
“Stay down.”
“I know.”
The train began moving.
Catherine climbed aboard after Margaret.
Adrian followed.
I grabbed the rail with one hand and pulled myself onto the final car.
Pain tore through my leg.
The terminal disappeared behind us.
Inside, the train had been converted into a mobile archive.
Filing cabinets lined the walls.
Computer servers pulsed behind reinforced glass.
Margaret had spent decades preserving evidence.
Or leverage.
Catherine confronted her in the first car.
“Stop the train.”
Margaret sat beside the controls.
“You still believe this is about escape.”
“What is it about?”
“Succession.”
She looked past Catherine toward me.
“Samuel selected Madeline because he believed pain made her incorruptible.”
Margaret smiled.
“He was wrong.”
The train accelerated into a tunnel.
Adrian attempted to reach the engine from the roof.
Evelyn and Natalie remained behind with Grace.
Warren had disappeared during the gunfire.
Lily stayed beside me.
I wanted to send her back.
There was nowhere to send her.
Margaret inserted both brass keys into a console.
A panel opened.
Inside was a biometric scanner.
“Samuel’s account requires the blood of two Mercer branches,” she said. “Catherine’s line and Elizabeth’s line.”
I understood.
Catherine represented Samuel’s daughter.
I represented Samuel’s other descendants.
Margaret needed us both.
“You kidnapped Lily because she also carries my blood.”
“Lily is insurance.”
Catherine stepped in front of the scanner.
“You will not touch her.”
Margaret looked almost amused.
“You still think motherhood is measured by whom you protect in a single moment.”
Catherine struck her.
Margaret fell against the console.
The train brakes activated.
Everyone was thrown forward.
A section of the tunnel ahead opened into an underground station.
The train stopped.
Large steel doors closed behind us.
On the platform stood dozens of people.
Former judges.
Corporate executives.
Doctors.
Political advisers.
All older.
All wearing black lighthouse rings.
Hollis’s organization had not collapsed.
Its senior members had gathered underground.
A man stepped forward using a silver cane.
His face was partially hidden by the station lights.
The pattern of his cane matched the footprints we had found beneath the mountain.
Margaret lowered her head.
Not in fear.
In respect.
“You are late,” the man said.
I recognized his voice.
It was the same voice questioning me on the childhood tape.
He stepped into the light.
Thomas Mercer.
Samuel’s brother.
The man whose alleged illegal shipment had created the entire family scandal.
The man everyone believed had died in prison twenty years earlier.
May you like
Thomas looked at me and smiled.
“Hello, Madeline.”
