Chapter 13 - MY MOTHER WALKED INTO THE ROOM
Eleanor Rollins surrendered to federal authorities in Albuquerque.
She requested that Justin and I be present for her first formal interview.
We waited behind observation glass.
When the door opened, I recognized her immediately.
Not because she looked unchanged.
She did not.
A scar crossed the left side of her neck. Her hair had gone almost entirely white. She walked with a slight stiffness in one leg.
But she paused before entering a room exactly as I did.
One second.
A quiet assessment of every exit.
My body knew her before my heart allowed it.
Justin pressed his fist against his mouth.
My mother sat at the table.
She looked toward the glass, though she could not see us through it.
“I know they’re there,” she said.
Chen entered.
“Mrs. Rollins, you understand that this interview is being recorded?”
“Yes.”
“You have been legally dead for twenty-four years.”
“Yes.”
“Did you knowingly allow your children to believe you died?”
My mother closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Justin left the observation room.
I followed him into the corridor.
He paced once, then turned to me.
“I can’t do this.”
“You don’t have to today.”
“She said it like she was confirming an appointment.”
“How else could she say it?”
“I don’t know!”
His voice echoed.
An agent looked toward us, then away.
Justin lowered his voice.
“I was nineteen. You were twenty-four. We had no parents. Harrison told us not to fall apart because the company needed us.”
“I remember.”
“She was alive.”
“I know.”
“She let him raise us.”
The last word broke.
I held him.
He resisted for half a second, then folded against me like the young man he had been at the funeral.
When we returned, my mother was explaining the crash.
She had discovered Harrison’s project and planned to expose him. Celeste Varga offered help, claiming she wanted to stop Harrison from compromising international medical data.
Celeste arranged the flight.
She also arranged the sabotage.
The intention was to kill my father and frighten my mother into surrendering the archive.
But my mother survived.
Celeste’s team extracted her before rescuers reached the wreckage.
“They told me Harrison had people at the hospital,” Eleanor said. “They showed me photographs of Sabrina and Justin. They said if I appeared publicly, the children would be next.”
“Did you believe them?” Chen asked.
“Yes.”
“Why not contact law enforcement?”
“Because Harrison already controlled two investigators assigned to the corporate-fraud inquiry.”
“Why remain hidden after those investigators were removed?”
My mother looked toward the glass again.
“Because by then I had committed crimes of my own.”
She had used false identities.
Transferred protected data.
Paid informants.
Helped Celeste sabotage competitors in exchange for information about Harrison.
Protection had become collaboration.
“How long did you know Kenneth was reporting to Harrison?” Chen asked.
My mother’s answer came quietly.
“Before the wedding.”
I placed my palm against the glass.
May you like
The room did not move.
But something inside me fell.
