Chapter 6 - The Sister Who Stole a Dead Woman’s Life
And Rachel was my twin sister.”
Marcus stared at the woman standing in the rain.
For six years, he had dreamed about Rachel.
Sometimes she was healthy again, laughing in their kitchen while Chloe made pancakes badly enough to cover the counter in flour. Sometimes she was dying again, and Marcus would wake before he could reach her hospital bed.
But never—not once—had his nightmares prepared him for this.
He looked from Rebecca to the body in the grave.
Same face.
Same dark hair.
Even the faint scar above the left eyebrow was there.
Marcus remembered kissing that scar hundreds of times.
“Rachel never had a sister.”
Rebecca's expression collapsed.
“She did.”
“I knew her for twelve years.”
“I know.”
“We were married for nine.”
“I know.”
“She told me everything about her family.”
“No,” Rebecca whispered. “She told you everything she was allowed to tell you.”
Marcus lunged forward.
Ruiz caught him.
“Marcus.”
“Get off me.”
“Not until you calm down.”
“That's my wife in the ground!”
“And that's exactly why you're not thinking clearly.”
Marcus stopped fighting, but his eyes never left Rebecca.
“When did she die?”
Rebecca looked toward the grave.
“I don't know.”
“Wrong answer.”
“I swear.”
“You pretended to be her.”
“Only tonight.”
“You let me touch you. You let me believe—”
“I never told you I was Rachel.”
“You knew what I believed.”
Rebecca's eyes filled with tears.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because if I told you before we found Chloe, you wouldn't have trusted me long enough to save her.”
Marcus laughed bitterly.
“You were right.”
Eleanor stood several feet away beneath the rain, staring at Rebecca.
“You shouldn't exist.”
Rebecca turned toward her.
“Neither should half the people your husband created.”
Eleanor's face tightened.
“I had nothing to do with your birth.”
“No?”
Rebecca stepped closer.
“Then why does your signature appear on our adoption records?”
Marcus looked sharply at Eleanor.
“What adoption records?”
Eleanor remained silent.
Rebecca nodded as though she had expected exactly that response.
“Rachel and I were born at St. Catherine's Medical Center in 1985. Officially, Rachel was adopted by Thomas and Evelyn Mercer.”
Marcus knew those names.
Rachel's parents.
Both had died before Marcus met her.
“And you?” he asked.
Rebecca's mouth tightened.
“There is no official record of me.”
Ruiz frowned.
“No birth certificate?”
“Not under Rebecca Mercer.”
“What were you called?”
Rebecca looked toward the silver case.
“R-02.”
Marcus felt cold despite the rain.
Another code.
Another human being turned into a laboratory designation.
Rebecca continued.
“Rachel was R-01. I was R-02.”
Marcus looked at Eleanor.
“You knew?”
“I knew there were twins in an early research cohort.”
“Children?”
“Embryos,” Eleanor said quietly.
Rebecca slapped her.
The sound cut through the rain.
Ruiz moved forward, but Eleanor raised a hand.
“No.”
Rebecca was shaking.
“We were not embryos when you separated us.”
Eleanor touched her cheek.
“I didn't separate you.”
“Your signature did.”
“I signed hundreds of administrative documents for Adrian.”
“That excuse must help you sleep.”
“It hasn't.”
For a moment the two women stared at each other.
Then a forensic technician approached Ruiz.
“We opened one of the sealed evidence envelopes.”
“Which one?”
“C-17.”
Marcus immediately turned.
“What’s inside?”
“Photographs. Medical imaging. Genetic reports.”
“Anything identifying Chloe?”
The technician hesitated.
“Yes.”
Marcus followed him toward the temporary evidence canopy.
Inside, photographs had been arranged beneath protective plastic.
Chloe as a newborn.
Chloe at two.
At four.
At six.
Marcus's stomach tightened.
Many had been taken without his knowledge.
One showed Chloe walking out of kindergarten.
Another showed Marcus carrying her into their house while she slept.
Someone had been watching them for years.
Then Marcus saw a photograph of Rachel.
Not Rebecca.
Rachel.
The date printed beneath it was four years after Rachel's supposed death.
Marcus picked it up.
“Rebecca?”
She approached.
Her expression changed immediately.
“That's Rachel.”
“You're sure?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Rebecca pointed toward the woman's right hand.
“She lost the tip of her little finger when we were children.”
Marcus remembered.
Rachel had always said it happened in a kitchen accident.
Another lie hiding a larger truth.
“So Rachel survived after I was told she died.”
“Yes.”
“And then ended up here.”
Rebecca stared at the grave.
“Apparently.”
Ruiz approached.
“We need formal identification before assuming anything.”
Rebecca nodded.
“DNA will confirm it.”
Marcus looked at her.
“You have matching DNA.”
“Almost.”
“Almost?”
“We're monozygotic twins, but Adrian's experiments changed that.”
Eleanor suddenly looked interested.
“What do you mean?”
Rebecca faced her.
“Rachel received the vector.”
“And you didn't?”
“I received a different one.”
Adrian had been experimenting on them since before they could remember.
Marcus looked at the photographs.
“Why did Rachel come back?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“To find Chloe.”
“Why?”
“Because she discovered Project Mnemosyne never ended.”
Marcus's anger sharpened.
“Who continued it?”
“I don't know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I genuinely don't.”
“Then what do you know?”
Rebecca looked toward the graves.
“I know Rachel contacted me three years ago.”
“You hadn't spoken before that?”
“Not since we were seventeen.”
“What happened when you were seventeen?”
Rebecca glanced at Eleanor.
“Adrian found us.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“Adrian believed R-02 died in infancy.”
“That's because Rachel switched our identification bracelets.”
Marcus frowned.
“At seventeen?”
“No.”
Rebecca's voice softened.
“When we were six.”
Marcus stared at her.
A six-year-old child manipulating research records sounded impossible.
But after what he had seen Chloe do tonight, impossible had become a fragile word.
“Why?”
“Rachel remembered things.”
“Like Chloe?”
Rebecca nodded.
“She knew Adrian was coming for one of us. She believed R-01 was the target.”
“So she made him believe you were R-01?”
“The opposite. She made the records show R-02 had died. She erased me.”
Marcus looked at the body in the grave.
“And saved you.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you separate?”
Rebecca looked away.
“Because I betrayed her.”
There it was.
The first confession Marcus actually believed.
“What did you do?”
“I told Adrian she was still alive.”
Eleanor whispered, “Why?”
Rebecca's eyes filled with shame.
“Because he promised to tell me who our mother was.”
Marcus waited.
“And did he?”
Rebecca nodded.
“Who?”
Before she could answer, a gunshot tore through the cemetery.
The floodlight above them shattered.
Darkness swallowed the graves.
“DOWN!” Ruiz shouted.
Marcus hit the wet ground.
A second shot struck the evidence canopy.
Then another.
Someone screamed.
Marcus crawled toward Rebecca.
“Where's Eleanor?”
Rebecca looked around.
“I can't see her!”
Emergency lights from a police vehicle illuminated the cemetery in flashes.
Marcus saw Eleanor running.
Not away from the gunfire.
Toward the woods.
“Mom!”
She disappeared between the trees.
Ruiz shouted into his radio.
“Shooter east side! Seal the property!”
Marcus started after Eleanor.
Rebecca grabbed him.
“Don't!”
“She knows something.”
“That's why they're shooting.”
Another bullet struck a headstone.
Stone fragments exploded across the grass.
Marcus and Rebecca dropped behind the angel monument.
Then Marcus heard Eleanor scream.
Not from the woods.
From beneath them.
He looked down.
A section of earth behind the angel had opened.
A hidden staircase.
“Marcus!” Eleanor shouted from below.
He followed.
Rebecca came after him.
The stone panel closed overhead just as another bullet struck it.
Darkness.
Then emergency lights flickered on.
They stood inside a narrow underground passage.
Eleanor leaned against the wall, breathing heavily.
Marcus grabbed her shoulders.
“What is this?”
“The original Blackwood laboratory.”
“You have another secret laboratory?”
“It predates the hospital.”
Rebecca stared down the passage.
“Adrian brought Rachel here.”
Eleanor looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“Because I remember it.”
Marcus froze.
“You said you weren't given the same vector.”
“I wasn't.”
“Then how could you remember Rachel's memories?”
Rebecca slowly looked at him.
“I couldn't.”
She turned toward the darkness ahead.
“Unless Rachel was here with me.”
A light suddenly appeared at the end of the passage.
Someone had activated the laboratory.
Marcus heard an old generator starting.
Then a projector clicked on.
A film began playing against the concrete wall.
The footage was dated thirty-four years earlier.
A younger Adrian Vance stood beside a hospital crib.
Beside him was Eleanor.
Inside the crib lay two infant girls.
Rachel.
Rebecca.
Then another woman entered the frame carrying a third infant.
Rebecca gasped.
Marcus looked at her.
“What?”
She pointed at the woman.
“My mother.”
Marcus turned toward the footage.
The woman was young.
Perhaps twenty-five.
She handed the third baby to Eleanor.
Adrian said something, but the film had no audio.
Then the woman turned toward the camera.
Marcus felt his entire body go cold.
He knew that face.
He had seen photographs of her throughout his childhood.
Rebecca whispered:
“That's our mother.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
Marcus stared at her.
“No.”
Rebecca looked between them.
“What?”
Marcus pointed toward the woman on-screen.
“That woman can't be your mother.”
“Why?”
Marcus could barely speak.
“Because that's Eleanor's sister.”
Eleanor opened her eyes.
“My younger sister,” she whispered.
Rebecca stepped backward.
“You told everyone she died.”
“She did.”
“When?”
Eleanor looked toward the film.
“The night you were born.”
The footage continued.
The young woman handed the third infant to Adrian.
Then she collapsed.
Adrian ignored her.
He was staring at the baby.
Marcus moved closer to the projection.
“Who is the third child?”
Eleanor began crying.
Rebecca turned toward her.
“Who?”
Eleanor whispered, “Marcus.”
He looked at her.
“What?”
She shook her head.
“No. Not you.”
Her trembling finger pointed toward the infant.
“His name was Marcus.”
Silence filled the underground laboratory.
Marcus stared at his mother.
“You named another child after me?”
Eleanor's face crumpled.
“No.”
She looked directly into his eyes.
“You were named after him.”
Marcus could no longer breathe.
Eleanor continued.
“The baby in that film was my biological son.”
Rebecca stared at Marcus.
Marcus stared back.
Then at Eleanor.
“If that baby was your son…”
His voice broke.
“…then who am I?”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
When she answered, her voice was barely audible.
“You were the child Adrian brought home three days later.”
Marcus felt the floor disappear beneath him.
“From where?”
Eleanor looked at Rebecca.
Then at the projected image of the twin infants.
“From the same experiment that created Rachel and Rebecca.”
Marcus stood completely still.
Eleanor's next words shattered the last certainty he had about his own life.
“Marcus, Adrian Vance was never your biological father.”
She swallowed.
“And I was never your biological mother.”