Chapter 12 - THE SECOND ATTEMPT
Claire’s hospital room was empty.
The IV tubing had been cut.
One security guard was unconscious.
Another was missing.
Margaret and Samuel were still there.
Julian was not.
Daniel felt panic rise.
Then Claire called again.
“I’m okay.”
“Where are you?”
“Parking garage.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“What happened?”
“Someone came in wearing a nurse’s uniform.”
Claire recognized the woman from the cemetery.
A mourner she had assumed was one of Samuel’s former colleagues.
The woman attempted to inject Claire.
Julian entered unexpectedly.
He fought her.
Claire escaped.
The attacker fled.
Julian pursued her.
Now neither had returned.
Daniel reached the garage ten minutes later.
He found Julian behind a concrete pillar.
Bleeding.
Conscious.
“Claire?”
“Safe.”
“Who attacked you?”
Julian handed him a badge.
Northstar Biomedical.
Name: Dr. Helen Ward.
Samuel recognized it immediately.
Helen Ward had been one of the original Orpheus researchers.
Supposedly dead twelve years.
Another ghost.
Ortiz created a list.
Samuel Mercer.
Margaret Mercer.
Evelyn Shaw.
Helen Ward.
Potentially Rebecca Hale.
Five people connected to Orpheus had official death records while still alive.
Death had become a hiding place.
Claire stared at the list.
“How many more?”
Samuel answered.
“At least seven.”
The implications were enormous.
Fake deaths allowed researchers to disappear.
Witnesses could vanish.
Patients could be moved without scrutiny.
People could be declared dead while still biologically alive.
Daniel understood why Evelyn wanted the technology.
It was not only medicine.
It was identity erasure.
A person could die on paper and continue somewhere else.
Noah looked at Ortiz.
“My mother?”
“We’re searching.”
“Alive?”
“We believe so.”
Daniel noticed Samuel studying the list.
“What?”
Samuel pointed to one name.
Helen Ward.
“She shouldn’t be helping Evelyn.”
“Why?”
“They hated each other.”
Claire said, “Maybe that changed.”
Samuel shook his head.
“Helen blamed Evelyn for Participant Seven.”
“Who was Participant Seven?”
Samuel looked toward Margaret.
Then at Daniel.
“Julian.”
Silence.
Daniel turned toward his brother.
Julian did not deny it.
“You were in the trial?”
“I was seventeen.”
Daniel stared.
“You were seventeen and Dad put you in an experimental trial?”
Samuel interrupted.
“I didn’t.”
Julian smiled without humor.
“Marcus did.”
After Samuel attempted to shut Orpheus down, Marcus secretly tested the compound on Julian.
A lower dose.
Short duration.
Julian survived.
But the experience changed him.
For years he suffered memory gaps and cardiac irregularities.
Daniel suddenly understood his brother’s obsession.
His secrecy.
His relationship with Marcus.
Julian had not merely been covering the project.
He had been hunting the people who used him.
Claire whispered.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
Julian looked at Samuel.
“Because Dad asked me not to.”
Daniel turned on his father.
Samuel looked older than ever.
“I thought I could fix it.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“That sentence destroyed this family.”
No one answered.
Ortiz’s phone rang.
She listened.
Then looked at Noah.
“We found Rebecca.”
“Where?”
“Chicago.”
Noah stood.
Ortiz continued.
“She walked into a federal field office twenty minutes ago.”
Noah’s eyes widened.
“She’s alive?”
“Yes.”
“Is she hurt?”
“No.”
“What did she say?”
Ortiz’s expression changed.
“She says Evelyn has a final Orpheus subject.”
Samuel went still.
“Who?”
Ortiz looked toward Daniel.
“Someone the Mercer family believes has been dead for more than thirty years.”
Daniel frowned.
There was only one person left.
His grandfather.
Samuel’s father.
Dr. Edward Mercer.
The neurologist whose early research had inspired Orpheus.
Samuel whispered.
“That’s impossible.”
May you like
Ortiz answered.
“Rebecca says he built it.”
