CHAPTER 5: THE MAN WITH RICHARD’S FACE
The recording continued.
The man who looked like Richard signed three documents.
“Subject C-1 goes to Miriam Shaw.”
Claire’s heart stopped.
Miriam was the woman who had raised her.
“Subject C-2 remains under observation.”
Claire Vale lowered her eyes.
“Subject E will be placed with the Whitmore family.”
Adrian looked toward Evelyn’s childhood photograph.
“Subject E was my mother.”
The recording ended.
Richard touched the scar above his right eyebrow.
The man in the video had worn his on the left.
“Someone copied my face.”
Marcus examined the monitor.
“This recording is twenty-nine years old.”
“That was before the fire,” Claire said.
Richard looked at the black screen.
“My father had an identical brother.”
“Where is he?”
“He died as a child.”
Claire Vale stepped closer.
“Did you see the body?”
Richard said nothing.
A red light began flashing above the observation-room door.
The gas had stopped.
Marcus forced the door open.
Inside the archive, the files were burning.
Someone had triggered an incineration system.
Claire rushed toward the cabinets.
Adrian caught her around the waist.
“You’ll die in there.”
“The files contain my entire life!”
“They want you to run into the fire.”
The flames spread quickly.
Claire watched the evidence turn black.
Then she remembered Dr. Voss’s brass key.
She pressed it against the divided-circle symbol on the wall.
A compartment opened.
Inside was a single black box.
Marcus carried it into the corridor.
The label read:
HELENA—ORIGINAL MEMORY RECORD.
Richard stared at it.
“What is a memory record?”
Claire Vale answered.
“They didn’t only study our genetics.”
She pointed toward the observation rooms.
“They recorded memories, fears, habits, and emotional responses.”
Adrian looked disturbed.
“Why?”
“To recreate people.”
Claire examined the black box.
“Helena’s memories are inside this?”
“Possibly.”
Richard reached for it.
Claire pulled it away.
“You’ve hidden enough.”
“I’m her husband.”
“You don’t even know whether the woman you married was Helena.”
A distant alarm sounded.
Marcus checked the corridor.
“Someone else is on this floor.”
The third woman appeared at the far end.
She was still wearing Claire’s face and Claire’s wedding ring.
A man stood beside her.
Commissioner Thomas Hale.
The same police commissioner who had publicly investigated the Vale fire.
Hale raised a gun.
“Put the memory box on the floor.”
Claire Vale aimed her pistol.
Hale smiled.
“If you shoot me, every police officer in this city will believe Claire Bennett murdered a commissioner.”
Claire Bennett stepped forward.
“You helped erase me.”
“I helped keep you alive.”
“You worked with Evelyn.”
“I worked for Richard Vale.”
Everyone looked at Richard.
He shook his head.
“I have never met this man privately.”
Hale reached inside his coat and removed a photograph.
It showed Richard and Hale shaking hands inside the hidden facility.
The date was six months earlier.
Richard stared at it.
“That wasn’t me.”
Hale laughed.
“Of course not.”
The third woman removed a small knife.
She cut her palm.
Then she cut Hale’s hand.
Their blood touched.
A scanner beside the wall activated.
A steel door opened behind them.
Hale pulled the woman through it.
Before disappearing, she looked directly at Claire.
“Ask Adrian what happened the night before your wedding.”
The door sealed.
May you like
Claire turned toward her husband.
Adrian’s face had lost all color.
