Chapter 12 - The Name That Belonged to Three
The figure outside stopped beneath the terminal lamp.
She wore a red coat and carried a transparent umbrella. Elise could not see her face through the rain, but Victor appeared to recognize her.
“We need to leave,” he said.
“You locked the doors,” Nora replied.
“To keep her outside.”
The woman raised one hand.
The terminal lights went dark.
Victor used the brass key to open a maintenance door behind the ticket counter. Elise followed Nora into a narrow tunnel while footsteps entered the terminal above them.
“Who is she?” Elise demanded.
Victor kept moving.
“Her name is Amelia Cross.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“She is the third person who carries your birth record.”
The tunnel ended beside an unused railway platform. Victor led them into a parked service vehicle and started the engine.
During the drive, Nora opened the metal box again. A hidden compartment beneath the hospital bracelets contained a strip of microfilm.
Elise held it against the dashboard light.
It showed a municipal registry page dated thirty-four years earlier.
Three names had been entered beneath the same certificate number.
Elise Ward.
Nora Keene.
Amelia Cross.
Two names were marked TRANSFERRED.
The third was marked ORIGINAL.
But black ink covered the word beside each woman.
“Where are we going?” Nora asked.
Victor turned onto an empty highway.
“To the only person who knows which one of you was actually born.”
Elise watched the city disappear behind them.
Her phone vibrated.
May you like
A message had arrived from her own number.
DON’T TRUST THE MAN DRIVING.
