Chapter 16 - The Signature of a Dead Man
David Marlowe had signed the contract two years after he was supposed to be dead.
Lila stared at the signature until the letters stopped looking like a name.
DAVID MARLOWE.
The handwriting was elegant, slanting slightly to the right.
A witness to a marriage contract between two children.
Her and Julian.
“This is forged.”
Nobody answered.
Lila looked toward Helena.
“Tell me it’s forged.”
Helena approached the monitor.
“I don’t know.”
“You knew David’s handwriting.”
“Yes.”
“Is that his signature?”
Helena studied it.
Her face slowly changed.
“Yes.”
Lila’s stomach tightened.
“But you said Richard killed him before I was born.”
“I believed he did.”
Richard laughed from across the room.
Helena turned.
“You knew.”
Richard shrugged.
“I knew David survived the first attempt.”
“The first?”
Lila’s voice stopped everyone.
Richard looked at her.
“Yes.”
“How many times did someone try to kill my father?”
Richard smiled.
“Enough that he eventually learned to stay dead.”
Lila stepped toward him.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is he alive?”
“I genuinely don’t know.”
She searched his face.
For once, Richard seemed to be telling the truth.
Julian returned his attention to the contract.
“Forget David for one minute.”
Lila looked at him.
He pointed toward the screen.
“We apparently have a bigger immediate problem.”
Their names sat side by side.
LILA VALE.
JULIAN BLACKWOOD.
Contract status:
PRE-AUTHORIZED UNION.
Lila almost laughed.
“Union?”
Nora examined the record.
“It isn’t a legal marriage.”
“Good.”
“It’s worse.”
Lila’s relief vanished.
“How?”
“It’s a Continuity succession instrument.”
Julian frowned.
“In normal language.”
Nora scrolled.
“If Lila legally marries Julian, the system automatically recognizes him as joint custodian.”
Lila looked at Julian.
“Then we don’t get married.”
“Works for me.”
Something about how quickly he said it irritated her.
She immediately hated herself for noticing.
Alexander smiled.
Lila glared at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Your face says something.”
“It’s interesting.”
“What is?”
“The physiological reaction.”
Julian stepped toward him.
“Finish that sentence and I’ll demonstrate another physiological reaction.”
Alexander wisely stopped smiling.
Nora continued reading.
“There’s another condition.”
Lila sighed.
“Of course there is.”
“If the pre-authorized union is rejected by either party…”
She stopped.
“What?”
“The priority succession moves to the alternate.”
“Who is the alternate?”
Nora opened another page.
The screen loaded.
Then displayed:
ALTERNATE SUCCESSOR: ALEXANDER VALE.
Everyone turned.
Alexander’s amusement disappeared.
“I didn’t know.”
Lila stared at him.
“My biological brother.”
“Yes.”
“And if Julian and I reject this contract?”
Nora nodded.
“Alexander becomes eligible to request custodianship.”
“Request?”
“Not automatically receive it.”
“How?”
Nora scrolled.
Her expression darkened.
“Through genetic-family consolidation.”
Alexander stared.
“What does that mean?”
Reed answered from behind Grant.
“It means you marry Lila.”
Silence.
Alexander looked horrified.
“She’s my sister.”
“Genetically.”
“That sentence doesn’t improve anything.”
For once, Lila liked him.
Richard laughed.
“The founders cared about bloodline continuity, not modern discomfort.”
Helena turned on him.
“They were monsters.”
“Yes.”
Richard smiled.
“And yet all of you are fighting over what they built.”
Lila looked around the facility.
The doors were open now.
Subjects cautiously entered the corridors.
Some hugged one another.
Others simply stood beneath the lights as if waiting for someone to tell them they were allowed to move.
Eva appeared at the archive entrance.
The seven-year-old girl looked toward Lila.
“Can we go outside?”
The question silenced everyone.
Lila crouched.
“Yes.”
Eva looked suspicious.
“Really outside?”
“Yes.”
“Not the garden room?”
Lila felt something break inside her.
“Real outside.”
“Is there sky?”
“Yes.”
“What color?”
Lila smiled.
“Depends.”
Eva frowned.
“They said it’s blue.”
“Sometimes.”
“What other colors?”
Lila thought about sunsets.
Storms.
Morning fog.
Rain.
Her father teaching her shadows.
“Come with me someday and I’ll show you.”
Eva considered the offer.
Then nodded.
“Okay.”
She walked away.
Lila stood.
“That’s what matters.”
Julian looked at her.
“What?”
“Not this contract.”
She pointed toward the open corridor.
“Them.”
Julian nodded.
“Agreed.”
Nora approached.
“We need transportation, identities, medical support.”
“Money too,” Alexander added.
Lila looked toward Reed.
“How much money does Continuity control?”
He smiled.
“You don’t want to know.”
“I do.”
Nora accessed the financial dashboard.
Then stopped.
“Oh.”
“What?”
She turned the screen.
Lila stared.
$18,740,000,000.
Julian whistled softly.
“Apparently your 2.4 billion was the small inheritance.”
Lila looked at him.
“I preferred cleaning.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“No.”
She sighed.
“But the accounting was easier.”
Helena almost smiled.
Lila looked toward Nora.
“Use it.”
“For what?”
“Everything.”
“Lila—”
“Housing. Doctors. Lawyers. Education. Whatever these people need.”
Reed laughed.
“You think money fixes institutional conditioning?”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“But unlike you, I’m not going to use that as an excuse to keep them imprisoned.”
Nora nodded slowly.
For the first time, something resembling hope appeared in her face.
Then the system beeped.
A notification.
EXTERNAL CUSTODIAN CHALLENGE RECEIVED.
Nora froze.
“What now?”
She opened it.
Someone had submitted a formal claim against Lila’s control of Continuity.
“Who?”
Nora read the name.
“D. Marlowe.”
Lila stopped breathing.
David.
Her father.
“Timestamp?”
“Thirty seconds ago.”
Helena grabbed the desk.
“He’s alive.”
Richard’s expression changed.
Not amusement.
Fear.
Real fear.
Lila noticed.
“You’re afraid of him.”
Richard said nothing.
“Why?”
“He knows things.”
“What things?”
“Things I spent thirty-five years burying.”
Lila stepped closer.
“Where is he?”
Richard looked toward the challenge notice.
“If that submission is genuine…”
He swallowed.
“He’s coming here.”
A second notification appeared.
VIDEO MESSAGE RECEIVED.
Nora opened it.
A man appeared on-screen.
Approximately sixty.
Dark gray hair.
Thin face.
Tired eyes.
Lila immediately recognized something in him.
Not from memory.
From herself.
The way his left eyebrow lifted when he concentrated.
She did that.
The man looked directly into the camera.
“Lila.”
Her chest tightened.
“If you’re watching this, then Helena survived long enough for the founder protocol to activate.”
Helena covered her mouth.
“David.”
The man continued.
“And Richard has probably told you I’m dead.”
Richard looked away.
“I’m sorry.”
David paused.
“For all of it.”
Lila moved closer to the screen.
“I cannot ask you to forgive people you have never met.”
His eyes seemed to carry exhaustion accumulated over decades.
“But I can ask you not to trust the Continuity records.”
Nora frowned.
David continued.
“The genetic data was altered.”
Alexander went still.
Lila felt cold.
“If they have told you who your biological parents are, assume they are lying.”
Victoria stepped forward.
“What?”
David’s recorded image continued.
“If Victoria is alive, she will believe she carried you.”
Victoria stared.
“She did.”
“No,” David said on-screen, almost as if answering her.
“She carried a child.”
Lila stopped breathing.
“But that child was not Lila.”
Victoria backed away.
“No.”
David continued.
“The infants were exchanged.”
Helena whispered:
“Oh God.”
Lila stared at the screen.
Again.
Another identity collapsing.
David held up an old photograph.
Two newborn girls.
“The child Victoria delivered was removed twelve minutes after birth.”
Victoria began shaking.
“No.”
“The child later called Lila was brought into the room from another ward.”
Lila could barely breathe.
“Then who am I?”
The recording continued.
“I spent thirty-five years trying to answer that question.”
Richard suddenly moved toward the screen.
“Turn it off.”
Julian blocked him.
“Interesting reaction.”
“Turn it off!”
Lila stared at Richard.
“You know.”
“No.”
“You know who I am.”
Richard’s face had become pale.
David continued.
“The answer is in Zurich.”
Box 731.
Lila touched the brass key.
“Do not trust anyone who tries to stop you from opening it.”
David paused.
“Especially Richard.”
Julian looked at the man he had called father.
Richard said nothing.
“And especially me.”
Lila frowned.
David continued:
“Because by the time you reach Zurich, you may discover I have become exactly what I spent my life fighting.”
The recording ended.
Silence.
Helena whispered:
“Where is he?”
Nora checked the metadata.
“The message bounced through multiple servers.”
“Can you trace it?”
“Maybe.”
Alexander suddenly looked toward Victoria.
“If the baby you delivered wasn’t Lila…”
Victoria seemed unable to hear him.
“What happened to my daughter?”
No one answered.
Then Nora looked at Alexander.
Her expression changed.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“The origin records.”
She opened his file.
ALEXANDER VALE.
MATERNAL SOURCE: VICTORIA MARLOWE.
PATERNAL SOURCE: DAVID MARLOWE.
But David had just said the genetic records were altered.
Nora opened another hidden layer.
The data had been modified twenty-seven years earlier.
Original maternal designation:
UNKNOWN.
Victoria stared.
“He isn’t mine.”
Alexander looked strangely wounded.
Lila understood.
Another person losing parents in real time.
Then Nora found something else.
“There’s a linked infant record.”
“To whom?” Lila asked.
Nora opened it.
INFANT V-1.
FEMALE.
BORN TO VICTORIA MARLOWE.
TRANSFERRED 12 MINUTES POST-DELIVERY.
“Where?”
The destination field was encrypted.
Lila looked toward Reed.
“You know.”
“No.”
“You were there.”
“I joined later.”
“Who was the attending doctor?”
Nora searched.
Her face changed.
“Dr. Nathaniel Reed.”
Everyone turned.
Reed stopped smiling.
Lila approached.
“You said you joined later.”
“I did.”
“The record says otherwise.”
“It’s forged.”
“Everything becomes forged whenever it implicates you.”
Julian grabbed Reed’s collar.
“Where did the baby go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.”
“I was a junior physician.”
“Where?”
Reed looked toward Richard.
Lila noticed.
“Richard knows.”
Richard’s face tightened.
Victoria moved toward him.
“My daughter.”
Richard backed away.
“What did you do with her?”
“Victoria—”
“WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER?”
Richard looked genuinely uncomfortable.
That was new.
“I didn’t kill her.”
Victoria slapped him.
“Where?”
“I gave her away.”
“To whom?”
“A family.”
“What family?”
Richard looked toward Helena.
“No.”
Helena’s face changed before he answered.
Richard continued.
“The Thornes.”
Silence.
Elias stared.
“What?”
Richard looked at him.
“Margaret Thorne wanted her stolen daughter back.”
Helena.
“But Helena was already a Marlowe.”
“So I gave Margaret another child.”
Helena recoiled.
“You replaced me?”
Richard shrugged.
“She never knew.”
Elias’s face drained of color.
“No.”
Lila turned.
“What?”
He seemed unable to speak.
“Dad?”
Elias looked toward Victoria.
“My sister.”
Victoria froze.
“What?”
“Margaret raised another girl after me.”
His voice trembled.
“She told everyone the child belonged to a distant cousin.”
Lila’s pulse accelerated.
“What was her name?”
Elias whispered:
“Rose.”
Victoria stepped closer.
“Where is she?”
Elias closed his eyes.
“She died.”
Victoria made a broken sound.
“When?”
“Twenty years ago.”
“How?”
“Car accident.”
Richard looked away.
Lila saw it.
“No.”
She stared at him.
“That wasn’t an accident.”
Richard remained silent.
Helena looked at him.
“You killed her.”
“I didn’t.”
“Who did?”
Richard said nothing.
Then Elias whispered:
“Rose had a daughter.”
Everyone turned toward him.
Victoria stopped breathing.
“A daughter?”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
Elias looked at Lila.
“You know her.”
Lila frowned.
“Who?”
Elias hesitated.
“She works at Blackwood House.”
Julian’s face changed.
“Which employee?”
Elias looked toward him.
“The housekeeper who hired Lila.”
Lila remembered.
Mrs. Evelyn Hart.
Fifty-two.
Strict.
Quiet.
The woman who had interviewed Lila six months earlier.
The woman who had insisted Lila work Tuesdays.
Every Tuesday.
Lila felt cold.
“She placed me near The Silent Echo.”
Elias nodded.
“Maybe.”
Julian pulled out his phone.
He called Grant’s mansion security.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Nora checked the facility network.
“Blackwood House security just went offline.”
Julian stared at Lila.
“Again.”
Then Lila’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
A woman spoke.
Calm.
Familiar.
“Lila.”
Mrs. Hart.
“Where are you?”
“At the mansion.”
“Why?”
“Because someone finally opened Helena’s room.”
Lila felt cold.
“What do you want?”
“The same thing my mother wanted.”
“Rose?”
Silence.
Then:
“So Elias told you.”
“Are you Victoria’s granddaughter?”
Mrs. Hart laughed softly.
“That depends which records you believe.”
Lila closed her eyes.
Of course.
“What are you doing at the mansion?”
“Looking for the only thing everyone missed.”
“What?”
“The original Silent Echo.”
Lila frowned.
“We found it.”
“No.”
Mrs. Hart’s voice changed.
“You found the second version.”
Lila stopped breathing.
“What?”
“The eight-million-dollar painting was a copy.”
Silence.
Even Helena looked stunned.
Lila remembered painting it at sixteen.
Her own hands.
Her grief.
Her canvas.
“How can it be a copy? I painted it.”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Hart sounded almost gentle.
“You copied Helena’s original without knowing it.”
Lila’s blood went cold.
“No.”
“The photograph Elias gave you was not a photograph.”
Lila remembered the faded image of Helena beside a window.
“It was a photographic reproduction of a painting.”
Helena whispered:
“No…”
Mrs. Hart continued.
“Helena painted The Silent Echo before Lila was born.”
Lila looked at her mother.
Helena’s face showed recognition.
“I called it something else.”
“What?”
Helena whispered:
“The Last Daughter.”
Mrs. Hart heard her.
“Yes.”
Lila’s heart pounded.
“Where is the original?”
“Inside Blackwood House.”
“Where?”
“That’s what I’m finding.”
“Why?”
“Because David hid the true identity records behind the canvas.”
Lila stared at the phone.
“My identity?”
“Yours.”
“And Victoria’s daughter.”
Victoria moved closer.
“Put me on speaker.”
Lila did.
Victoria spoke.
“Who are you?”
Mrs. Hart went silent.
“Answer me.”
Finally:
“My name is Claire Hart.”
“Are you Rose’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
Victoria began crying.
Claire continued.
“And if Richard told the truth for once, Rose was your biological daughter.”
Victoria covered her mouth.
Claire’s voice softened.
“Which makes you my grandmother.”
Silence.
Then a crash came through the phone.
Claire gasped.
Lila straightened.
“What happened?”
Footsteps.
Someone else was inside Blackwood House.
“Claire?”
No answer.
Then a man’s voice.
Older.
Calm.
Lila had heard it only minutes earlier on video.
David Marlowe.
“Hello, Claire.”
Helena went white.
“David.”
The phone remained connected.
Claire whispered:
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
David answered:
“So is everyone worth knowing in this family.”
A struggle.
Then the call went dead.
Lila immediately looked toward Julian.
“We’re going back.”
Julian nodded.
Richard suddenly laughed.
Lila turned.
“What?”
“You still don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
Richard looked toward the brass key around her neck.
“David doesn’t need Zurich anymore.”
Lila’s stomach tightened.
“Why?”
“Because Claire just found what he spent thirty-five years searching for.”
“The original painting?”
“Yes.”
“What’s behind it?”
Richard smiled.
“Not records.”
“Then what?”
He looked toward Helena.
“The only photograph proving who Lila’s biological mother actually is.”
Lila stared.
“Who?”
Richard’s smile disappeared.
“I never saw her face.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because David showed me the back.”
Lila’s heart pounded.
“What was written there?”
Richard answered slowly:
LILA WITH HER MOTHER — THREE HOURS BEFORE THE MURDER.
The room fell silent.
Lila looked at Helena.
Then Victoria.
Then Elias.
“My biological mother was murdered the day I was born?”
Richard nodded.
“And David knows who killed her.”
Lila’s hand closed around the brass key.
“Who?”
Richard looked toward the dead phone.
“Ask him.”
Then Nora interrupted.
“Lila.”
She was staring at the security monitor.
“What?”
“We have an incoming vehicle.”
“Continuity?”
“No.”
“Police?”
“No.”
The exterior camera showed a black car approaching the facility.
It stopped outside.
One man stepped out.
Lila recognized him from the video immediately.
David Marlowe.
But that was impossible.
They had just heard him at Blackwood House, nearly forty minutes away.
Julian stared at the screen.
“Then who was on Claire’s phone?”
Nobody answered.
The man outside looked directly into the security camera.
Then raised a cardboard sign.
Four words:
DO NOT TRUST DAVID MARLOWE.
Lila felt her blood turn cold.
The man lowered the sign.
Then removed a realistic prosthetic mask.
Helena screamed.
Underneath was the face of someone they all knew.
Marcus Vale.
The man who had been shot in the chest and declared dead hours earlier.
He smiled into the camera.
Then held up a second sign:
I KNOW WHO LILA'S MOTHER WAS.