Chapter 26: Mara Wakes
Mara regained consciousness the next morning.
Leah went to the hospital alone.
Federal agents guarded the hallway, but Adrian insisted on monitoring the conversation from an adjacent room.
Mara sat upright in bed with her bandaged hand resting across the blanket.
“You found Hawthorne House,” she said.
Leah stopped near the door.
“How do you know?”
“The smoke is on your coat.”
“Nora is alive.”
Mara’s eyes filled with tears.
“You saw her?”
“I saw a recording.”
“Where is she?”
“She said you aren’t her sister.”
Mara looked toward the window.
“Biologically, no.”
“Then who are you?”
“Nora and I grew up together in foster care. We chose to call each other sisters.”
“Why would she tell me not to trust you?”
“Because she believes Margaret Ashford saved her.”
Leah pulled a chair beside the bed.
“Did Margaret send you to the ballroom?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“A man named Peter Vale.”
The name did not appear in any Ashford files Leah had seen.
Mara explained that Peter was a former Halcyon accountant.
He contacted her after Nora disappeared.
He gave her the forged records, the photograph from Hawthorne House, and instructions to confront Leah publicly.
“He said private meetings could be erased,” Mara said. “Public accusations could not.”
“Where is Peter now?”
“Dead.”
“You said he died the day before the gala.”
“That’s what the police told me.”
“Did you see his body?”
“No.”
Leah thought of Julian’s plane crash.
Death certificates had become unreliable in the Ashford world.
“Why was the Courage Fund logo on the documents?”
“Peter said someone inside the foundation copied every authorization system before the program officially opened.”
“That would require access before I hired most of the staff.”
Mara nodded.
“He said the foundation was compromised from the beginning.”
“By Margaret?”
“He never gave me a name.”
“What did he say?”
Mara looked directly at her.
“He said the person controlling the Courage Fund was the person who first suggested creating it.”
Leah remembered the night the idea was born.
After the ballroom scandal, Leah had wanted to help workers who feared retaliation.
Eleanor provided funding.
Adrian provided legal support.
But the first person to suggest turning the effort into a permanent foundation had been Nina Cole.
Leah stood.
At that moment, Adrian entered the room.
“Nina is gone,” he said.
“When?”
“Twenty minutes ago. She left a resignation letter.”
Mara’s heart monitor began beeping faster.
“What is it?” Leah asked.
Mara stared at Adrian.
“Nina Cole isn’t her real name.”
“How do you know her?”
“She was at the foster home with Nora and me.”
“What was her name?”
“Lena Caldwell.”
Adrian went still.
Caldwell.
Mara pulled a photograph from beneath her pillow.
It showed three teenage girls outside a foster home.
Mara.
Nora.
And a younger Nina Cole.
On the back was a date from fifteen years earlier.
May you like
Beside Nina’s face, someone had written:
THE SURVIVING TWIN.
