Chapter 7 - The Woman Anna Helped Escape
Anna had helped Claire leave St. Adrian at 5:26 a.m.
Not because Claire was kidnapped.
Because Claire begged her.
Claire believed hospital records had been manipulated.
Her death status remained active even after she regained consciousness.
Someone tried administering another blue-vial dose.
Anna stopped it.
Claire panicked.
She refused formal discharge.
Michael appeared.
But Claire did not trust him completely either.
That surprised Victor.
“Why?”
“Because Michael knew too much about vial before Claire told him.”
Michael had supposedly vanished six months earlier.
Yet when he appeared, he already knew Sophie’s batch number.
Claire asked how.
Michael refused answer.
So Claire chose Anna.
Anna disguised Claire in staff coat and took her to private apartment.
“How long?”
“Three days.”
“Then?”
“Claire left.”
“With Michael?”
“I don't know.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Healthy?”
“Recovering.”
Victor’s relief came with anger.
Claire survived hospital.
She had opportunity to contact him.
She chose not to.
Why?
Anna handed Victor letter Claire left.
DAD,
IF YOU FIND THIS, I’M SORRY.
THE PROBLEM ISN’T WHO TRIED TO KILL ME.
I DON’T THINK ANYONE DID.
THE PROBLEM IS SOMEBODY NEEDED SOPHIE TO STAY SICK.
Victor closed eyes.
That matched emerging evidence.
Claire did not believe vial was assassination attempt.
She believed Sophie was being medically manipulated.
Then:
MICHAEL SAYS HE DISAPPEARED TO TRACE IT.
I DON’T KNOW IF I BELIEVE HIM.
ELEANOR KNOWS MORE ABOUT FOUNDATION THAN SHE ADMITS.
DO NOT ACCUSE HER UNTIL YOU FIND BLUE LEDGER.
Blue ledger.
Another central object.
Anna had never seen it.
Victor asked where Claire went.
Anna only knew a car collected her.
Driver female.
Blonde.
Eleanor?
Anna shook head.
“Older.”
Victor showed family photographs.
Anna pointed.
Victoria Ashford.
Victor’s wife.
Claire’s mother.
Impossible.
Victoria had died twelve years earlier.
Anna looked again.
“Maybe resemblance. But that’s who she looked like.”
Victor refused another fake death spiral without evidence.
Victoria’s death had been witnessed.
Cancer.
Hospice.
Victor was present.
No mystery.
So woman merely resembled her.
Who?
Victoria had a younger sister.
Margaret Bell.
Estranged from Ashfords for twenty years.
Victor had not thought of her in years.
Margaret was alive.
And when investigators reached her Vermont home, they found photograph on wall.
Claire.
Taken fourteen months after Claire’s supposed death.
May you like
Standing beside Margaret.
Holding Sophie’s blue medicine vial.
