We reached Chloe’s apartment fourteen minutes after the call ended.
Police reached it in eleven.
The front door stood open.
Nothing inside appeared disturbed.
A lamp burned beside the sofa. A half-filled glass of water sat on the kitchen counter. One slipper lay near the hallway.
No Chloe.
No Vivian.
On the dining table was a cardboard box.
My name had been written across the lid.
MARTHA.
I was beginning to hate seeing my name on things dead people and liars had prepared for me.
An officer photographed the box before allowing anyone to touch it.
Inside were letters tied with blue ribbon.
The first was addressed to Eleanor.
Arthur’s first wife.
Chloe’s mother.
The second was from Eleanor to Margaret Higgins.
My mother.
I sat down.
“How did Chloe get these?”
Richard answered.
“Eleanor kept everything.”
“You knew her?”
“Yes.”
“How many people from Arthur’s old life did you know?”
“Most.”
I looked at him.
“That was not admiration.”
“I know.”
I unfolded the first letter.
Eleanor’s handwriting was small and slanted.
Margaret,
Arthur told me what happened at the lake.
He says Robert will bury it.
Do not trust Dr. Keene.
Vivian is bringing him girls.
Your Martha was not the first.
I stopped.
Andrew read over my shoulder.
“Girls.”
Plural.
I continued.
Keene believes memory can be interrupted chemically and reconstructed through suggestion. Robert thinks the work has military or intelligence value and wants results he can sell.
Peter swore.
“My father funded that?”
Daniel nodded.
“He wanted government contracts.”
My hands trembled.
The letter continued.
Arthur says Martha reacts differently. She remembers through sedation. Keene believes this may be inherited through Margaret’s family because Vivian reports similar effects in herself.
I looked at Richard.
“Vivian volunteered?”
“Yes.”
“She participated?”
“At first.”
“When?”
“Before you.”
The pieces shifted.
Vivian had not simply discovered Keene’s operation.
She had entered it.
Maybe even helped build it.
“Why my mother?”
Richard answered carefully.
“Margaret and Vivian both had unusually strong reactions to certain sedatives.”
“That sounds vague.”
“It was.”
Daniel added, “Keene built theories from tiny samples and called them science.”
“And then he tested teenagers.”
“Yes.”
I returned to the letter.
Please keep Martha away from Vivian. Arthur believes Vivian has begun to identify with Keene’s work. She says Martha’s memory could make them rich if they prove why it works.
I stopped reading.
My aunt had drugged me because I was valuable to her.
Not as family.
As evidence.
Andrew sat beside me.
“You don’t have to read all of this tonight.”
“Yes, I do.”
I turned to the next page.
Eleanor wrote that Arthur intended to help Margaret expose the operation.
But then Eleanor discovered something worse.
Arthur had been involved personally with Martha.
My heart stopped.
The letter continued.
He swears he did not touch her at the clinic. He says after the July incident she became confused and frightened and began seeking him out because she remembered him as the person who helped her escape.
I closed my eyes.
Memories returned in pieces.
A diner.
Arthur seated across from me.
You cannot keep coming here.
Why?
Because you are sixteen.
I heard my own younger voice.
You’re the only one who believes me.
I opened my eyes.
I had known him.
Not casually.
I had gone to him.
Daniel watched my face.
“You remember?”
“Some.”
Arthur had been twenty-seven.
I had been sixteen.
Even if I had pursued him, the responsibility was his.
The letter did not soften that.
Neither did I.
I continued.
Eleanor wrote that Arthur admitted the relationship had crossed a line.
My stomach knotted.
He told her he believed I loved him.
Eleanor wrote one sentence twice.
She is a child, Arthur.
She is a child.
I set the letter down.
Andrew looked away.
No one spoke.
I finally said, “That answers the paternity.”
Not cleanly.
Not comfortably.
But truth did not owe us comfort.
Arthur had fathered Andrew.
Arthur had also been an adult who became involved with a sixteen-year-old under circumstances poisoned by sedation, fear, and dependence.
The man I married nine years later had known exactly who I was.
The betrayal became almost too complicated to feel.
David sat opposite me.
“Mom.”
“I’m all right.”
He knew I was lying.
So did I.
I picked up another letter.
Eleanor had confronted Arthur.
He promised to stay away.
Then I became pregnant.
Robert Dalton assumed Peter was responsible.
Arthur knew otherwise.
“Did Arthur know immediately?” I asked Daniel.
“Yes.”
“Why put his name on the hospital record?”
“To claim responsibility privately while allowing Robert to believe Peter was the father publicly.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It did to Arthur.”
Richard spoke quietly.
“He thought if Robert knew the child was his, Robert would kill him.”
“And perhaps Andrew too.”
No one answered.
That was answer enough.
My hands went cold.
“Why take Andrew away?”
“Arthur did not choose that.”
“Who did?”
“Robert and Keene.”
“Why?”
Daniel looked toward the letters.
“Keene wanted the baby observed.”
Andrew stood.
“What?”
“He believed the same memory trait might pass to Martha’s child.”
“No.”
“They wanted longitudinal testing.”
Andrew backed away.
“No.”
I rose.
“Did they test him?”
Daniel said, “Not at first.”
“At first?”
“When Tommy took custody, he vanished with him for nearly three years.”
I looked at Andrew.
“Tommy protected you.”
“Yes.”
“Then how did they find you?”
Andrew’s expression changed.
“I had seizures when I was four.”
Daniel nodded.
“Hospital records flagged him.”
I felt sick.
Keene had built a system that reached through hospitals.
Not sophisticated by modern standards.
But enough.
“Did they experiment on Andrew?”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Once.”
Andrew stared.
“You knew?”
“I found out later.”
“What did they do?”
“Sedation. Memory tasks.”
Andrew laughed bitterly.
“I have no memory of that.”
Nobody missed the cruelty of the sentence.
I reached for him.
He stepped away.
Not rejecting me.
Trying not to collapse.
I let him have the distance.
Another letter waited.
This one was from my mother to Eleanor.
Eleanor,
Martha remembers more every day.
She dreamed about the room again.
Vivian says I should let Keene examine her because suppressing the memories may be safer.
I do not believe her.
Arthur says he can move Martha somewhere Robert cannot reach her, but I do not trust Arthur either.
Good.
Even then, my mother had seen clearly.
She wrote that she considered sending me to relatives out of state.
She never did.
Because two weeks later she became ill.
Poisoned.
“Vivian,” I said.
Richard shook his head.
“We never proved it.”
“I don’t need a courtroom standard to understand motive.”
The final paragraph changed everything.
If something happens to me, Eleanor, remember this: Vivian was not alone when she brought Martha to Keene.
Someone from our family helped her.
I reread it.
“Our family?”
Richard frowned.
“Margaret meant Higgins family?”
“Who else?”
“My grandparents were dead.”
“Any cousins?”
“None nearby.”
“Siblings besides Vivian?”
I shook my head.
Then stopped.
I had already been wrong once about my mother being an only child.
“What else don’t I know?”
Richard did not answer.
Daniel looked at him.
That look was enough.
I stood.
“Say it.”
Richard pressed his lips together.
“Margaret and Vivian had a half brother.”
I laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
“Of course they did.”
“His name was Edward Shaw.”
“Why a different surname?”
“Same mother. Different father.”
“Where was he?”
“Oakridge.”
“During 1970?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
Richard hesitated.
“He worked security for Robert Dalton.”
There it was.
The family link.
My own uncle had helped the man who funded Keene.
“Is he alive?”
“No.”
“When did he die?”
“1998.”
“Children?”
Richard looked away.
I knew immediately.
“Who?”
He did not answer.
“Richard.”
“Chloe’s mother wasn’t Arthur’s only connection to your family.”
I stared at him.
“What does that mean?”
Before he could answer, a police officer entered from the hallway.
“We found Ms. Jenkins’s phone.”
“Where?”
“Parking garage.”
“Any sign of her?”
“Blood.”
My chest tightened.
“How much?”
“Not enough to suggest a fatal injury.”
“Vivian?”
“Security camera caught two women leaving in a car.”
“Which car?”
“Registered to the Dalton Foundation.”
Peter’s family.
Even after Robert’s death, his machinery was still moving.
The officer placed Chloe’s phone in an evidence bag.
“One audio file was recording.”
“Can we hear it?”
He hesitated.
“It may be evidence.”
“Please.”
He consulted another detective, then played a copy.
Chloe’s voice.
“You lied to me.”
Vivian answered.
“I kept you alive.”
“My mother said Arthur was trying to expose Keene.”
“Your mother was sentimental.”
“Did Arthur kill her?”
“No.”
Chloe breathed shakily.
“Then who did?”
Vivian replied, “Edward.”
My uncle.
Richard closed his eyes.
The recording continued.
“Why?”
“Because Eleanor was going to take Martha to the police.”
My stomach dropped.
Chloe said, “Martha wasn’t Eleanor’s responsibility.”
Vivian laughed.
“She became everyone’s responsibility.”
Then a sound.
A door.
Chloe whispered, “Who are you?”
A man answered.
His voice was older.
Calm.
Familiar.
I knew it.
Not from high school.
Not from the reunion.
From years of business meetings.
David recognized it too.
“No.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“That’s Harold.”
Harold Greene.
Caldwell Linens’ chief financial officer.
My employee for twenty-eight years.
The man who had sat beside Arthur at board meetings.
The man who called me every Christmas.
The man who knew every company account.
Including vendor banking information.
The forged request.
It had not been Andrew alone.
Andrew saw it at the same moment.
“I used information someone emailed me.”
“Who?”
“I thought it came from Arthur’s trust.”
David said, “It came from Harold.”
The recording played on.
Chloe asked, “Why are you helping her?”
Harold answered with one sentence.
“Because Martha was never supposed to own Caldwell.”
I felt the floor tilt.
Vivian spoke next.
“Arthur stole that company from Robert.”
Harold said, “And from us.”
Us.
Not me.
Us.
I looked at Daniel.
“Who is Harold Greene?”
Daniel’s face had become pale.
Richard answered.
“Edward Shaw’s son.”
My cousin.
A man who had spent nearly three decades inside my company.
Inside my finances.
Inside the business Arthur and I built from what I had believed was nothing.
Everything suddenly connected.
The altered vendor instructions.
The hidden files.
The false reimbursement.
The reunion.
None of it had been random.
Harold had known Andrew would seek the trust.
He had known I would be at the Fairmont.
He had known Arthur’s archive might surface.
“He planned tonight,” I said.
Daniel nodded.
“Probably.”
“Why?”
“To force the records into the open.”
“That helps me.”
“Not if he controls what survives.”
David stood.
“The warehouse fire.”
“Yes.”
“He wanted Dad’s evidence destroyed.”
Richard said, “And Vivian wanted something from the clinic.”
“The files?”
“Not all of them.”
“What specifically?”
Daniel pointed toward the Subject 12 folder I had brought from the clinic.
“The original baseline test.”
“What’s on it?”
“Keene recorded every session.”
“We saw film canisters.”
“Those are copies.”
“Where is the original?”
Daniel looked toward Chloe’s empty apartment.
“Arthur gave it to Eleanor.”
Chloe’s mother.
“And Eleanor gave it to Chloe?”
“Maybe.”
My phone rang.
Harold Greene.
I answered immediately.
“Where is Chloe?”
“She’s safe.”
“You have ten seconds to prove that.”
Chloe came on.
“Martha.”
Her voice shook.
“I’m okay.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Small cut.”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know.”
Harold returned.
“Martha.”
“You forged my signature.”
“Indirectly.”
“You helped Andrew.”
“I gave him what he needed.”
“You set fire to my warehouse?”
“No.”
“Vivian?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“Peter.”
I looked at the police detective.
“Peter says he didn’t.”
“Peter lies when breathing.”
“What do you want?”
“The Subject 12 file.”
I tightened my grip.
“Why?”
“Because it proves what Keene discovered.”
“I don’t care what Keene discovered.”
“You will.”
“Release Chloe.”
“Bring the file.”
“No.”
Silence.
Then Harold said, “Arthur spent forty years preventing you from learning why Keene chose your family.”
“I know enough.”
“No, Martha.”
His voice softened.
“You still think this story began with you.”
I closed my eyes.
“Then tell me where it began.”
“With Margaret.”
My mother.
“What did Keene do to her?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why her?”
“Because she had already been studied.”
I stopped breathing.
“By whom?”
Harold answered quietly.
“Keene’s father.”
The room seemed to shrink.
“What?”
“Your mother was Subject Three.”
No one spoke.
Harold continued.
“Vivian was Subject Four.”
I looked at Richard.
He stared at the floor.
“And me?”
“You already know.”
Subject Twelve.
Three generations of secrets suddenly became two.
My mother had not merely discovered Keene’s research.
She had grown up inside its predecessor.
“Where are you?”
Harold ignored the question.
“Bring the file to the old Oakridge nursing school.”
“When?”
“Forty minutes.”
“Let me speak to Chloe again.”
“No.”
“Harold.”
“You know me well enough to know I won’t hurt her unless someone forces me.”
I felt anger replace fear.
“No. I know you well enough to know I never knew you at all.”
He was silent.
Then he said something that made the blood leave my face.
“Arthur said the same thing about you.”
The call ended.
Andrew looked at me.
“What does that mean?”
I did not know.
Then David opened the Subject 12 folder again.
A page had been stuck behind the back cover.
He pulled it free.
It was not a medical chart.
It was Arthur’s handwriting.
One line.
IF HAROLD CONTACTS MARTHA, TELL HER SUBJECT TWELVE WAS NOT THE PATIENT.
I took the page.
Underneath, Arthur had written another sentence.
SHE WAS THE CONTROL.
I stared at it.
Andrew frowned.
“If you weren’t the patient, then who was?”
I turned the sheet over.
A name was written on the back.
VIVIAN HIGGINS.
And beneath Vivian’s name:
PRIMARY SUBJECT.
I finally understood why she had watched me for more than half a century.
Keene had not chosen me because he wanted to study what the drugs did to my memory.
He had chosen me to compare my untouched mind with Vivian’s altered one.
Which meant one terrible thing.
The drugs Vivian put in my food had not been part of Keene’s experiment.
They had been her own.
She had been trying to make me like her.
Click here to continue reading: PART 9: Arthur’s Note Said I Was Never Keene’s Patient, but Harold Wanted Me to Believe the Difference Could Save Chloe’s Life
Fifty-Five Years After Prom, Brenda Vance Put an Apron in My Hands and Expected Me to Know My Place
Part 8 of 35
