Chapter 10 - Marianne's Child
The newborn was Marianne’s granddaughter.
Not genetically confirmed yet.
But that was her belief.
Her daughter, Olivia Vale, had disappeared eight months earlier while investigating Northstar’s successor network.
Olivia was thirty-one.
Journalist.
Pregnant.
She told Marianne she had found evidence that someone had restarted unauthorized sample collection.
Then she vanished.
Three days earlier, Marianne received an anonymous message:
OLIVIA IS DEAD. THE CHILD IS ALIVE.
A location followed.
Marianne found the baby.
No Olivia.
She panicked.
Instead of going directly to authorities, she created the Sarah delivery to force everyone connected to Northstar into one place.
Thomas stared.
“You used a newborn as bait.”
“I never left her unattended.”
“You sent her across town with a woman who knew nothing!”
“I followed them.”
Sarah looked furious.
“You manipulated me.”
“Yes.”
Marianne did not defend herself.
Claire noticed the pattern again.
Every person convinced themselves secrecy justified using someone else.
“Enough.”
Everyone turned toward her.
Claire was exhausted.
Barely standing.
Yet her voice controlled the room.
“No more secret tests. No more fake deaths. No more anonymous notes.”
She looked at Marianne.
“If Olivia is missing, we report Olivia missing.”
Then Thomas.
“If you know something, you tell the police.”
Then Evelyn.
“If Northstar has records, they go to lawyers and investigators.”
Then Melissa.
“And you.”
Melissa flinched.
Claire continued:
“You laughed.”
“I was pretending.”
“You still laughed.”
Melissa cried.
“I know.”
“You watched for weeks.”
“I was scared of Ryan.”
“So was I.”
No easy absolution.
Melissa nodded.
“I’ll tell them everything.”
Claire finally sat.
Sarah remained near the newborn.
She had been holding the baby for nearly an hour.
The child had stopped crying against her chest.
Then investigators found something in Marianne’s car.
Olivia’s camera.
Marianne claimed she had never seen it.
The memory card contained footage from six months earlier.
Olivia secretly filmed Dr. Vale entering a storage facility.
Evelyn.
Thomas.
And one more person.
Melissa.
Claire looked up.
Melissa stopped breathing.
“You were there.”
Melissa shook her head.
“I’ve never seen that place.”
Video timestamp.
Clear face.
Same coat Melissa still owned.
Thomas whispered:
“Then somebody wanted us to believe you were there.”
Facial analysis later suggested no obvious manipulation.
Melissa stared at herself on the screen.
Then suddenly touched the scar behind her left ear.
“I lost two days.”
Everyone went quiet.
Six months earlier, Melissa crashed her car.
Minor collision.
She woke in a private clinic.
Evelyn told her she had suffered a concussion.
Melissa remembered nothing between leaving work and waking up.
The clinic?
Northstar-affiliated.
Claire whispered:
“They used you.”
Maybe.
Or Melissa was lying.
They could no longer assume either.
Then the video showed Melissa opening the storage unit.
Inside were dozens of archived boxes.
She turned toward Olivia’s hidden camera.
And said:
“Claire can never know Ryan was selected before she was born.”
Present-day Melissa began sobbing.
“I don’t remember saying that.”
The recording continued.
Olivia stepped from hiding.
“Selected for what?”
Video-Melissa smiled.
Not nervously.
Coldly.
“To give her a child.”
Then she attacked the camera.
The footage ended.
Claire stared at Melissa.
Melissa whispered:
“That isn’t me.”
Thomas said:
“It looks like you.”
Melissa backed away.
“No.”
Then Sarah noticed something.
“Her left hand.”
In the footage, Melissa grabbed the camera with her left hand.
Present Melissa was strongly right-handed.
More importantly, video-Melissa wore a wedding ring.
Melissa had never married.
Evelyn suddenly stood.
Claire saw recognition.
“You know who she is.”
May you like
Evelyn whispered:
“Melissa has a twin.”
