Chapter 8 - The Mother Who Was Buried Twice
The woman looked older than Claire remembered from the photographs, but there was no mistaking her eyes.
Blue-gray, with a faint crease at the outer corners. The same eyes Claire saw every morning in the mirror.
“Mom?” Claire whispered.
The woman covered her mouth.
For several seconds, neither of them moved. Then Claire crossed the space between them and stopped just short of touching her.
“You're dead.”
The woman began to cry.
“I know.”
“You were buried.”
“I know.”
“I went to your funeral.”
“I know, Claire.”
Claire stepped back as if she'd been struck.
“Don't say my name like you have any right to it.”
The woman lowered her hands. “My name is Margaret Vale. I was told you would be safer if you believed I was dead.”
“Who told you that?”
“People who were afraid of what I knew.”
“About Sophie?”
“About the program. About the children. About your father.”
Claire stared at her.
“My father died before I was born.”
“That was what they wanted you to believe.”
The words were too enormous to enter her mind all at once.
Margaret explained that she had worked as a medical records coordinator at a private clinic outside Chicago. She had discovered discrepancies in patient files and learned that certain infants had been transferred into a research program without their parents' knowledge. When she tried to report it, she was threatened. A staged accident killed the man she believed was her husband, and she was told that Claire would be killed next unless she disappeared.
“I left you with people I thought could protect you,” Margaret said. “I believed the danger would pass.”
“So you let me grow up thinking you were dead?”
“I thought it was the only way to keep you alive.”
“You don't get to call that protection.”
Margaret's face crumpled, but she did not argue.
Claire wanted to hate her. It would have been easier than facing the possibility that her mother had been trapped in the same machinery of lies that had taken Sophie.
“Did you know I had twins?”
Margaret nodded slowly.
“I found out after the birth. The hospital told me the second baby had died. But I saw the transfer form. I knew it wasn't true.”
“Why didn't you take the baby?”
“Because I was recovering from surgery, and they had people watching me. I was told that if I made trouble, you would both disappear.”
“Both?”
“You and the baby.”
Claire's breath caught.
“So the baby survived?”
“I don't know. I tried to find out. Every lead ended in a closed file or a dead end.”
“Who took my child?”
Margaret looked toward the photograph on the table.
“Meridian arranged the transfer. But the authorization came from someone inside the DeLuca family.”
Claire felt a familiar coldness spread through her.
“Eleanor.”
Margaret did not answer.
“Was it Adrian?”
“I can't prove that.”
“Did he know?”
“I don't know.”
Claire turned away, pressing her palms against her eyes.
She had spent the last week discovering that the people closest to her had hidden pieces of her own life. Her husband had chosen his mistress over their daughter. Doctors had altered medical records. A private company had treated children as data. And now her mother, the woman Claire had mourned for nearly three decades, stood alive in front of her.
“How did you find me?” Claire asked.
“I saw the news about your disappearance. I recognized the photograph of Sophie. I knew the program had begun moving again.”
“Moving where?”
Margaret glanced at Naomi.
“There's a facility in northern Wisconsin. It was supposed to have closed years ago. But the transfer records show that children were still being sent there under new identities.”
Naomi stepped forward. “Do you have proof?”
Margaret reached into her coat and produced a folded document.
“This is a list of transfers. The original names are mostly missing. But there are dates, patient numbers, and signatures.”
Naomi examined it.
One signature stood out.
Adrian DeLuca.
Claire took the document from her.
“No.”
Margaret's voice was gentle. “I'm sorry.”
“No. He may have signed something else. A property form. A financial document. Anything.”
“The date is the same day your second child was born.”
Claire stared at the page until the letters blurred.
She could no longer protect the memory of the man she had married. Not after Sophie. Not after the recording. Not after this.
“Why would he do it?” she whispered.
Margaret looked at her with unbearable sadness.
“Because he believed the family name was more important than the truth.”
A noise sounded outside the conservatory.
Ortiz raised his weapon and moved toward the door. Naomi tucked the document into her coat.
A car engine roared to life.
Then another.
“We've been followed,” Ortiz said. “Move!”
They escaped through the rear exit into a narrow garden path. Two agents were waiting by the street, but a dark SUV pulled across the road, blocking their way. A man stepped out with a gun in his hand.
“Give us the documents,” he shouted.
Ortiz shoved Claire behind a stone planter.
The agents returned fire. Glass shattered, and the man dropped behind the SUV. Margaret grabbed Claire's arm and pulled her toward a side gate.
“Go!”
“I’m not leaving you!”
“You have to!”
Claire fought her, but Margaret pushed her through the gate and slammed it shut.
A gunshot cracked through the night.
Claire screamed.
On the other side of the gate, someone fell.
Then she heard Margaret's voice, weak but clear.
“Claire, don't let them take the children.”
The gate rattled.
Claire turned back, but Ortiz caught her around the waist and dragged her down the path.
“She's alive,” he said. “Keep moving!”
They reached the agents' vehicle and drove away under fire. Claire looked through the rear window until the conservatory vanished into the darkness.
She had found her mother.
And within minutes, she might have lost her again.
When Naomi checked her phone, a message had arrived from an unknown number.
A photograph showed a woman lying on a concrete floor, her face turned away from the camera.
May you like
Beneath it were six words.
One child is alive. Choose carefully.
