CHAPTER 27 THE NAME BENEATH THE INK
Nathan replayed Cole’s message.
The result never changed.
You were never my son.
Margaret refused to answer questions.
She sat under guard in a private hospital room after the wound to her arm had been treated.
Nathan stood beside her bed.
“Who is my father?”
Margaret looked toward the police officer near the door.
“I will speak to you alone.”
Nathan ordered everyone out except Claire.
Margaret’s eyes moved toward her.
“She should not hear this.”
“She hears everything.”
Margaret studied Nathan’s face.
“You were born at Blackwood, not at the hospital listed on your certificate.”
“Who gave birth to me?”
“I did not see her face.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“She wore a hood when Cole brought her into the house.”
Claire watched Margaret carefully.
“Why would a woman give birth in a hood?”
“Because Cole did not want me to recognize her.”
“You raised Nathan as your son.”
“I had lost a child two weeks earlier.”
Nathan stepped back.
“You lost a child?”
“A boy.”
“What happened to him?”
“Cole said he died.”
Claire and Nathan exchanged a look.
They had heard those words too many times.
Margaret continued.
“Cole placed you in my arms and told me that no one needed to know.”
“Did you know I wasn’t his?”
“He claimed you were.”
“But the video says otherwise.”
“Cole used truth and lies interchangeably.”
Claire removed Subject Seven’s bracelet from an evidence bag.
She rubbed the writing with an alcohol pad.
The number Seven disappeared.
Another word had been written beneath it.
WITNESS.
“This child isn’t an heir,” Claire said.
“She is carrying evidence.”
Nathan looked toward Margaret.
“What opens at the mausoleum?”
Margaret’s face changed.
“A room beneath Cole’s grave.”
“What room?”
“I never entered it.”
“You’re lying.”
“I knew the door existed. I did not know how to open it.”
Claire held up the bracelet.
“Subject Seven is the key.”
Margaret looked frightened.
“Do not take that child there.”
“Why?”
“Because Cole never built a door that opened only one way.”
Nathan turned to leave.
Margaret called after him.
“If the woman who gave birth to you is still alive, she will be waiting beneath the mausoleum.”
Nathan stopped.
“Who do you think she was?”
Margaret looked at Claire.
May you like
Then she looked back at Nathan.
“Veronica.”
