Chapter 3 - I pulled Emma behind the chimney.
The woman in the doorway remained motionless.
Same dark hair.
Same gray coat.
Same face.
For one impossible second, I thought there were two Margarets.
Then lightning flashed across the sky.
The woman turned.
It wasn't my mother.
It was someone who looked almost identical.
Close enough to fool me from a distance.
Close enough to fool anyone.
She disappeared into the house.
Emma whispered, “Dad…”
“I know.”
We climbed down from the roof using the old drainpipe.
My hands slipped twice.
The moment our feet hit the ground, I pulled Emma toward my car.
I looked back once.
My house was dark.
No Marcus.
No intruders.
No mother.
Nothing.
I drove without speaking.
Rain hammered the windshield.
Emma sat in the passenger seat with the silver key clenched in her fist.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Was that Grandma?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because your grandma has a scar.”
Emma looked at me.
I had never told her that.
My mother had a thin white scar behind her left ear from childhood surgery.
A scar I had noticed thousands of times.
The woman outside the house had no scar.
I called Marcus.
Straight to voicemail.
Then I called again.
Nothing.
I drove to my father's old lake house.
It had been empty since his death.
Nobody knew I still had the key.
At least I thought nobody knew.
We arrived just before midnight.
The house smelled of damp wood.
I locked every door.
Then I placed the silver key on the kitchen table.
Emma stared at it.
“Grandma said you should go there.”
“Where?”
“The room under the house.”
I frowned.
“What room?”
“She said Grandpa didn't know you knew about it.”
I looked beneath the table.
There was an old trapdoor in the floor.
I had forgotten it existed.
I opened it.
A narrow staircase descended into darkness.
Emma held my sleeve.
“I'm staying upstairs.”
“Good.”
I grabbed a flashlight.
The basement was colder than the rest of the house.
There were shelves filled with old wine bottles and rusted tools.
At the back was a steel door.
No handle.
Only a silver keyhole.
I stared at the key.
The same one.
I inserted it.
The lock turned.
The door opened.
Inside was a room lined with filing cabinets.
My father's handwriting was on every folder.
I opened the first.
Medical records.
My mother's medical records.
Cancer scans.
Hospital reports.
Medication lists.
I turned page after page.
Everything said the same thing.
Advanced cancer.
Terminal.
Unresponsive.
Dead.
Then I found something strange.
A second medical file.
Same patient.
Margaret Reed.
Different hospital.
Different doctor.
Date twelve years earlier.
Diagnosis:
No evidence of active cancer.
I stopped.
“What the hell?”
I grabbed another folder.
This one was labeled:
PROJECT M-17
Inside were photographs.
My mother.
Healthy.
Younger.
Standing beside men I had never seen.
One photograph had been taken at the lake house.
My father was there.
My mother was there.
And so was Marcus.
I turned the photograph over.
A handwritten message said:
The subject refuses to cooperate.
My stomach dropped.
Subject.
Not Margaret.
Not wife.
Subject.
I flipped through the pages.
There were notes about surveillance.
Financial transfers.
Private investigators.
A list of names.
Then I found one name I recognized.
My own.
DANIEL REED.
Next to it:
Potential liability. Monitor continuously.
I backed away from the file.
My father had been watching me.
Maybe for years.
A small metallic sound came from behind me.
Click.
I turned.
Emma stood in the doorway.
And behind her was Marcus.
His forehead was bleeding.
“Dad,” Emma whispered.
Marcus raised both hands.
“Don't shoot.”
I hadn't realized I was holding the old shotgun from the wall.
“How did you find us?”
“Your mother.”
I stared at him.
“You told me she was alive.”
“She is.”
“You lied to me about everything else.”
“I lied because I had to.”
I pointed the gun at him.
“What is Project M-17?”
Marcus's face went pale.
“You found the files.”
“Answer me.”
He looked at Emma.
Then back at me.
“M-17 wasn't a project.”
“What was it?”
“A person.”
“Who?”
He hesitated.
Then said:
“Your mother.”
Emma stepped closer.
Marcus lowered his voice.
“Your mother wasn't part of an experiment.”
“She was the experiment.”
I didn't understand.
He continued.
“Your father discovered something about her blood.”
My grip tightened.
“What?”
“A genetic marker.”
“That doesn't make sense.”
“It made your father very rich.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“What did they do to her?”
Marcus looked at me with exhausted eyes.
“They tried to reproduce it.”
“And?”
“They failed.”
“Then why did they fake her death?”
Marcus swallowed.
“Because the last experiment worked.”
Silence.
“What does that mean?”
Marcus didn't answer.
Instead, he looked toward Emma.
My daughter.
His face changed.
Fear.
Pure fear.
“The marker passed to her.”
The flashlight slipped from my hand.
Emma stared at him.
“What marker?”
Marcus whispered:
“The one your father spent twelve years trying to find.”
Suddenly the lights went out.
In the darkness, a woman's voice came from somewhere behind the wall.
“Enough, Marcus.”
I knew that voice.
My mother.
May you like
Then the steel door slammed shut.
And Emma was gone.
