Chapter 18 - Nora’s Truth
Nora shook her head.
“I didn’t put anything in Rebecca’s tea.”
Jonathan looked at his daughter with unbearable sadness.
“I know.”
Daniel frowned.
“You just said—”
“I said the person who poured it.”
Jonathan stepped closer.
“Nora did not pour Rebecca’s final cup.”
Nora’s face changed.
She remembered.
“That night…”
Daniel waited.
Nora whispered, “I made the pot.”
“But?”
“Claire poured it.”
Silence.
Claire stared.
“No.”
Nora looked at her.
“You came into the kitchen.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“You said Rebecca had a headache.”
Claire shook her head.
“I never—”
Then her expression changed.
She sat down.
“I was there.”
Daniel felt cold.
“Why did you lie?”
“I forgot.”
“That’s convenient.”
“No.”
Claire pressed both hands to her temples.
“I genuinely forgot.”
Jonathan spoke.
“Because you were exposed too.”
Everyone turned.
“Samuel used low-level treatments on several Mercer family members.”
Claire stared.
“What?”
“To disrupt memories.”
Daniel thought of Blackwood.
Memory alteration.
His own childhood.
Claire whispered, “He did it to me?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Repeatedly.”
She began crying.
Daniel’s anger weakened.
Jonathan explained that Samuel’s network survived by creating unreliable witnesses.
Medication changes.
Stress.
Sleep disruption.
Small memory gaps.
Nothing obvious enough to trigger alarm.
Rebecca recognized the pattern.
That was why she told Lily to watch for Daniel becoming sleepy.
“Who altered Claire’s memory?” Daniel asked.
Jonathan answered.
“Richard.”
Claire looked shattered.
Her husband.
Richard had helped dose her without understanding the full purpose.
He believed the medication treated anxiety.
Samuel controlled the prescriptions through Aster-linked doctors.
Daniel asked the final question.
“Who put it in Rebecca’s cup?”
Jonathan looked at Owen.
Owen’s face went white.
“No.”
Jonathan nodded.
“Samuel.”
Owen shook his head.
“He wasn’t there.”
“He was.”
“He was with me.”
“For part of the night.”
Owen stared.
Jonathan continued.
“Samuel entered the Mercer estate through the service tunnel.”
Daniel frowned.
“What service tunnel?”
Jonathan smiled sadly.
“Charles never told you?”
Beneath the original estate was an old delivery passage leading from the road to the kitchen cellar.
Sealed on modern blueprints.
But not physically sealed.
Samuel used it for years.
The west hallway blackout.
Nora’s abduction.
The hidden phone in Lily’s room.
Someone could enter without cameras.
Daniel now understood the impossible access.
“Where is Samuel?”
Jonathan looked toward the clock.
“Probably where this began.”
“Blackwood?”
“No.”
“The hospital.”
Daniel’s blood ran cold.
Charles.
Samuel wanted Charles dead.
They called immediately.
No answer from the hospital guard.
Then an emergency alert came through.
Fire alarm.
Hospital evacuation.
Daniel ran.
By the time they reached Charles’s floor, smoke filled the corridor.
Not a major fire.
A distraction.
Charles’s room was empty.
The bed sheets had been cut.
A nurse lay unconscious nearby.
Samuel had taken him.
On the pillow was a note.
BRING LILY TO THE GREENHOUSE.
Daniel’s vision narrowed.
“No.”
Owen read it.
“He wants the witness.”
“He’s not getting her.”
Jonathan said quietly, “He needs both ends of the experiment.”
Daniel turned.
“What does that mean?”
“You.”
“And Lily.”
“You were the first Mercer child Samuel studied.”
Jonathan’s voice broke.
“Lily is the last.”
Daniel understood.
Samuel didn’t simply want to hide Blackwood.
He wanted to finish it.
May you like
And he believed Daniel’s daughter belonged to the project.
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