Chapter 9 - Claire’s Other Face
Claire had a twin.
Identical.
Separated at age six.
Their father died.
Their mother couldn't support both children.
Claire went to relatives in Illinois.
Charlotte went to an aunt in New York.
Years later, Thomas Vale systematically erased Claire's contact with her remaining family.
By the time she escaped him, trauma and years of isolation had buried entire pieces of her childhood.
Charlotte remembered everything.
Worse, Charlotte had spent years believing Claire abandoned her.
Mercer found that resentment useful.
He married Charlotte.
Then convinced her Catherine and Claire had stolen the life she deserved.
“Where is she?” Claire asked.
Raymond didn't know.
Michael did.
“She works with Mercer.”
Claire stared at him.
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“Did you know before we had children?”
“No.”
“After?”
“Yes.”
Another betrayal.
Claire turned away.
Michael looked destroyed.
I understood that too.
Men in our world loved saying they lied to protect women.
Women usually experienced the lie differently.
Then Lucy entered.
“Mommy?”
Claire immediately wiped her face.
Lucy looked at the photograph.
“That's Auntie.”
Everyone froze.
“You've met her?”
Lucy nodded.
“At school.”
Charlotte had introduced herself as “Miss Ashby.”
The enrichment coordinator.
The woman authorizing visits to the blue room.
The woman with access to all four girls.
“Was Mr. Mercer with her?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did she ever say anything strange?”
Lucy thought.
“She said Mommy stole Daddy.”
Michael's face changed.
Claire whispered:
“Oh God.”
Charlotte wasn't helping Mercer merely for money.
She believed Michael should have been hers.
The whole operation had become personal.
Then Lucy remembered something else.
“Auntie has a baby.”
Claire froze.
“What baby?”
“A boy.”
“How old?”
Lucy held up five fingers.
Five.
Michael and Claire had been together seven years.
Mercer and Charlotte had married six years ago.
Possible.
Michael went pale before anyone accused him.
“No.”
Claire looked at him.
“I never touched Charlotte.”
Lucy frowned.
“He looks like Ethan.”
My attention sharpened.
“What?”
“The boy. He looks like Ethan.”
Hayes blood.
Michael?
Maybe.
Or another Hayes man.
Raymond stood.
“Impossible.”
I looked at him.
He was afraid.
“Whose child?”
“No idea.”
Lie.
I stepped closer.
“Raymond.”
He whispered:
“Catherine found Charlotte before Mercer did.”
“And?”
“Charlotte wasn't alone.”
“Who was with her?”
“My son.”
I stared.
Raymond's son Adrian had supposedly died overseas ten years earlier.
Apparently death certificates were decorative objects in my family too.
“Adrian is alive?”
“Was.”
“What happened?”
“Mercer recruited him into the blue-room operation. Adrian tried to leave.”
“Did Mercer kill him?”
Raymond's face hardened.
“I thought so.”
If Charlotte's five-year-old son resembled Ethan, Adrian could be the father.
Another Hayes child.
Another child Mercer could manipulate.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
Video call.
I answered.
Charlotte's face appeared.
It was like looking at Claire through colder eyes.
Behind her sat five children.
Claire's four daughters.
And a little boy.
“Hello, sister.”
Claire gasped.
Charlotte smiled.
“I think it's finally time we decide which one of us gets to keep the family.”
Then the camera moved.
Mercer stood behind her.
But he wasn't controlling Charlotte.
He was bleeding from his forehead, tied to a chair.
Charlotte leaned close to the camera.
“Richard has become inconvenient.”
She smiled.
“And Alexander?”
“Yes?”
“You should bring Ethan.”
I looked at my son.
“No.”
Charlotte's smile widened.
“Then I'll tell the girls what their father did before he became Michael Arden.”
May you like
Michael went completely still.
And Claire slowly turned toward him.
