Chapter 6 - The Night Caroline Was Born
Adrian Vale did not answer.
That frightened Caroline more than any denial could have.
The red emergency lights painted the underground room in pulses, turning Adrian's exhausted face into alternating shadows and blood-colored fragments.
On the television, Richard Holloway waited.
"Ask him," Holloway repeated.
Caroline looked at Adrian.
"Why did Rebecca try to kill you the night I was born?"
Lillian moved between them.
"Don't listen to him."
Caroline didn't take her eyes off Adrian.
"I wasn't asking you."
"Caroline—"
"Move."
Lillian hesitated, then stepped aside.
Adrian lowered himself onto the edge of the narrow bed.
For the first time since they had found him, he looked old.
Not merely physically damaged.
Defeated.
"Rebecca didn't try to kill me."
Holloway laughed through the speaker.
"There it is."
Adrian ignored him.
"She tried to stop me from taking you."
Caroline's pulse quickened.
"Taking me where?"
"Away from Douglas."
"Why?"
"Because I knew what he had done."
Marcus stepped closer.
"You just said Caroline wasn't created using your genetic material."
"She wasn't."
"But you knew about her birth?"
"Yes."
"How?"
Adrian looked at Caroline.
"Rebecca called me."
Holloway's voice interrupted.
"That's not the whole story."
Marcus raised his gun and fired into the television.
The screen shattered.
Silence.
Caroline stared at him.
"Why did you do that?"
"Because Holloway controls the conversation as long as we're listening."
"Maybe I needed to hear him."
"You need facts, not psychological warfare."
Adrian suddenly smiled faintly.
"Vance?"
Marcus looked at him.
"I remember you."
Marcus stiffened.
"You shouldn't."
"But I do."
"When?"
"Twenty years ago."
Marcus's face changed.
Caroline looked between them.
"You two have met?"
Marcus shook his head.
"Not that I remember."
Adrian stood.
"You came down here with your father."
Marcus stopped breathing.
"My father died when I was thirteen."
"No."
Marcus raised the gun.
"Be careful."
"Marcus," Caroline warned.
Adrian remained calm.
"Your father didn't die in a boating accident."
Marcus's hand began trembling.
"How do you know about that?"
"Because Thomas Vance came here."
Caroline stared at Marcus.
"You told us the detective investigating Adrian was Thomas Reed."
Marcus looked equally confused.
"He was."
Adrian shook his head.
"Thomas Reed was his professional name."
He pointed at Marcus.
"His real name was Thomas Vance."
Marcus's face drained of color.
For the first time, Caroline saw the investigator lose control.
"You're lying."
"I wish I were."
Marcus grabbed Adrian by the shirt.
"My father was an accountant."
"Your father was working undercover."
"Stop."
"He discovered I was alive."
Marcus shoved him against the wall.
"STOP."
Caroline grabbed Marcus's arm.
"Marcus!"
He looked at her.
Pain had replaced anger.
"My mother identified his body."
Adrian spoke quietly.
"Then she identified someone else's."
The words hung between them.
Another false corpse.
Another rewritten death.
Caroline suddenly understood something terrifying.
Her story wasn't unique.
It was a method.
Douglas Mercer didn't simply kill people.
He erased them.
Marcus released Adrian.
"We're getting out."
Adrian shook his head.
"Not yet."
"Why?"
"Because Holloway isn't the person controlling this facility."
Caroline frowned.
"Then who is?"
A loud metallic click came from somewhere beyond the room.
The gas vents stopped.
The emergency lights returned to white.
Adrian looked upward.
"Someone just unlocked the main corridor."
Marcus opened the door carefully.
The gas had cleared.
They moved out.
Lillian stayed close to Adrian, unwilling to let her brother disappear again.
Caroline walked ahead.
At the first junction, they found something waiting on the floor.
A white envelope.
Her name was written across it.
**CAROLINE.**
Marcus stopped her.
"Don't touch it."
She ignored him.
Inside was a keycard.
And a note.
**YOU HAVE BEEN LIED TO BY EVERYONE IN THAT ROOM.**
No signature.
Below it:
**ROOM 7.**
Adrian saw the message.
"We don't go there."
Caroline looked at him.
"Why?"
"Because Room 7 was Douglas's archive."
"Perfect."
"Caroline."
She walked away.
Marcus followed.
Room 7 stood at the end of another corridor.
The keycard worked.
Inside were filing cabinets and a single computer.
Caroline switched it on.
No password.
One folder appeared.
**C.M.**
She opened it.
Hundreds of files.
Photographs of Caroline as a child.
School records.
Medical records.
Travel schedules.
College transcripts.
Even photographs she had never seen.
Someone had documented her entire life.
"This is surveillance," Marcus said.
Caroline opened another folder.
**BIRTH.**
A video file.
Date: the night Caroline was born.
She clicked.
Security footage appeared.
A private clinic.
No audio.
Timestamp 2:48 A.M.
Rebecca Hale appeared in a hospital bed.
Young.
Exhausted.
Eleanor stood beside her, holding her hand.
Caroline's eyes filled with tears.
At 3:16, a nurse carried a newborn into the room.
Rebecca cried.
Eleanor cried.
They held the baby together.
Caroline touched the screen.
"That's me."
Then Douglas entered.
The atmosphere changed instantly.
Even without sound, Caroline could see Rebecca arguing.
Douglas reached for the baby.
Rebecca refused.
Another man entered.
Adrian.
Younger.
Powerful.
Alive.
Caroline looked at him.
"You were there."
"Yes."
On screen, Adrian confronted Douglas.
The argument escalated.
Rebecca got out of bed.
She could barely stand.
She grabbed something from a medical tray.
A scalpel.
Caroline leaned closer.
Rebecca attacked Adrian.
Holloway had told the truth.
Partly.
But then Caroline saw why.
Adrian had taken the baby.
Rebecca wasn't trying to murder him.
She was trying to get Caroline back.
Adrian raised one arm defensively.
The scalpel cut him.
He dropped the infant onto the bed.
Eleanor grabbed Caroline.
Then another person entered.
A police officer.
Young Richard Holloway.
Caroline stopped breathing.
Holloway looked at Rebecca.
Rebecca looked at him.
The reaction was unmistakable.
They knew each other.
Intimately.
Holloway rushed toward her.
Douglas stepped between them.
The video ended.
"No."
Caroline clicked the next file.
Audio only.
Rebecca's voice.
Young.
Terrified.
**"Richard doesn't know she's his."**
Caroline froze.
Douglas answered.
**"And he never will."**
Rebecca:
**"You promised Eleanor."**
Douglas:
**"Eleanor has her child."**
Rebecca:
**"She's not property."**
Then Adrian's voice:
**"Douglas, this ends tonight."**
Douglas laughed.
**"You don't understand. It started long before tonight."**
The recording stopped.
Caroline sat back.
Marcus whispered:
"So Holloway really is your father."
Adrian nodded.
"Biologically."
Caroline closed her eyes.
Richard Holloway.
The man threatening Rebecca.
The man who arrested Marcus.
The man connected to the cover-up.
Her father.
"Did Rebecca love him?"
Adrian answered.
"Yes."
"Did he love her?"
"I believe he did."
"Then why is he doing this?"
Adrian's expression darkened.
"Because love can become something very ugly when mixed with betrayal."
Caroline opened another file.
**ELEANOR.**
The date was eleven years earlier.
Three days before Eleanor's supposed death from cancer.
Video.
Caroline hesitated.
Then clicked.
Eleanor appeared inside the blue room.
She looked sick, but not terminally ill.
Douglas stood opposite her.
They were arguing.
This recording had sound.
"You forged Caroline's paternity."
Douglas said nothing.
"You stole Adrian's company."
Still nothing.
"You imprisoned him."
Douglas moved toward her.
Eleanor stepped back.
"I've sent copies to Lillian."
Douglas smiled.
"No, you haven't."
Eleanor's face changed.
"What did you do?"
"I protected this family."
"You destroyed this family."
Douglas reached into his pocket.
Caroline leaned toward the screen.
A syringe.
Eleanor backed away.
"No."
Caroline whispered the same word.
Douglas grabbed Eleanor.
She fought.
He injected something into her neck.
Caroline screamed.
On the video, Eleanor collapsed.
Douglas caught her.
Lowered her gently to the floor.
Then he knelt beside his wife.
His voice was almost tender.
"I'm sorry."
The footage ended.
Caroline sat motionless.
Marcus turned away.
Lillian covered her mouth.
Adrian closed his eyes.
Caroline stared at the black screen.
Eleven years of grief transformed into something else.
Murder.
Douglas had murdered Eleanor.
The father who raised Caroline.
The man tied upstairs waiting for rescue.
Her hands began shaking.
"I was going to save him."
Nobody answered.
"I was actually going to save him."
Adrian touched her shoulder.
Caroline pulled away.
"Don't."
Another file appeared automatically.
**LIVE FEED AVAILABLE.**
Marcus frowned.
"We didn't open that."
The computer screen changed.
Douglas appeared.
He was no longer tied.
He stood alone in an elegant underground chamber.
Completely unharmed.
Caroline's stomach dropped.
"He's not a prisoner."
Douglas looked directly into the camera.
As if he could see her.
Then he spoke.
"Hello, Caroline."
She went cold.
"I assume you've reached the part where I killed Eleanor."
Marcus moved toward the computer.
Douglas continued.
"Before you decide what kind of monster I am, there is one thing you should know."
Caroline stared.
"Eleanor wasn't innocent."
Adrian stepped forward.
"Turn it off."
Caroline blocked him.
"No."
Douglas smiled sadly.
"The woman you called Mother knew Adrian was imprisoned beneath our estate."
Caroline looked at Adrian.
Douglas continued.
"She knew for sixteen years."
Lillian whispered, "That's impossible."
"She helped put him there."
Adrian lunged toward the computer.
Marcus stopped him.
Caroline watched Douglas.
"And Rebecca?"
Douglas said.
"Rebecca knew too."
Caroline felt sick.
"Everyone you think you're rescuing helped build the prison you're standing inside."
Then Douglas looked off camera.
Someone approached him.
Juliette.
She was still wearing her wedding dress.
Blood covered the front of it.
Caroline stood.
"Juliette?"
Her sister looked directly into the camera.
She was crying.
"Caroline, don't come upstairs."
Douglas turned toward her.
Juliette raised the gun.
This time her finger was on the trigger.
She aimed at Douglas's chest.
"Tell her."
Douglas remained strangely calm.
"Juliette."
"TELL HER!"
"Tell me what?" Caroline shouted uselessly at the screen.
Juliette began sobbing.
"Tell Caroline who started the fire."
Douglas's face finally changed.
Caroline stopped breathing.
Juliette looked into the camera.
Her voice broke.
"It wasn't me."
A long silence.
Then Juliette whispered:
"It was Rebecca."