Chapter 18 - My Mother’s Second Funeral
Victor pulled the fire alarm while Nora restrained the impostor.
Rebecca led Elise through a service passage toward an emergency exit. Behind them, smoke swallowed the projector room.
“What happened to the real Amelia?” Elise asked.
Rebecca did not answer until they reached an underground chapel.
A bronze memorial plaque displayed twelve names.
Amelia Cross was among them.
“She died six years ago,” Rebecca said.
Malcolm had discovered Amelia while she was gathering evidence. He staged an accident and replaced her with an operative named Lydia Crane.
Elise stared at the plaque.
“Why did you let me believe you were dead?”
“Because Malcolm threatened to transfer your identity to someone else.”
Rebecca had arranged a false funeral after learning that Victor had been assigned to monitor Elise.
She disappeared into the facility, hoping to sabotage the Registry from within.
“You left me alone with him.”
“I believed Victor would protect you.”
Elise looked at her husband.
Victor’s clothes were dark with smoke. He appeared wounded by the accusation, but he did not deny his original assignment.
Rebecca opened a compartment beneath the memorial plaque.
Inside was a video recording prepared years earlier.
The screen showed Elise’s adoptive father, Samuel Ward, sitting beside Malcolm Hale.
Samuel confessed that he had accepted money to raise Elise. In return, he promised never to investigate her origin.
Then his voice changed.
“But I broke that promise.”
Samuel revealed that he had created a duplicate archive called the Orchard House.
It contained evidence separated from the system that maintained the false identities.
The criminals could be exposed without erasing the victims.
Rebecca looked at Elise.
“Your father died getting the location to me.”
“Where is it?”
Rebecca removed a train ticket from the compartment.
May you like
Printed across it were two words.
BLACKWATER ORCHARD.
