For several seconds, neither Jessie nor Gabriel moved.
Daniel’s voice had stopped, leaving only the faint hiss of the recording. Outside, police radios crackled and doors slammed. Officers were moving through the property, Dr. Vale was in custody, and somewhere near the river Emily Carter and Mrs. Alvarez were being brought to safety.
Jessie should have felt relief. Instead, four words had changed everything.
You weren’t the first.
She reached toward the recorder and pressed play again.
Daniel’s voice returned. “If you’re hearing this, then Vale survived, and whatever I tried to do wasn’t enough. I’m sorry for that. I’m especially sorry if you’re the one who has to finish it.”
Jessie’s jaw tightened.
“Don’t apologize to me,” she whispered.
Gabriel glanced at her but said nothing.
The recording continued. “Vale likes to call what he does training. It isn’t. Training gives someone skills they choose to use. Vale studies people until he understands what hurts them, what frightens them and what they need, and then he uses those things to reshape them. He doesn’t create strength. He finds people who already have it and convinces them it came from him.”
Jessie looked toward the doorway where Vale had disappeared in police custody.
Daniel had understood him perfectly.
Twenty-four years later, Vale was still trying to prove Daniel wrong.
“There were others before Jessie,” Daniel continued. “I don’t know how many. At least seven that I could confirm. Probably more. Young people mostly. People without families looking for them, or people whose families had already given up. Runaways. Kids in care. Young offenders. People living on the street. Vale called them candidates.”
Jessie felt something cold settle in her stomach.
Candidates.
A clean word.
Like collateral.
People who wanted to hurt others always seemed to find tidy language for it.
Daniel’s voice crackled through the old speaker. “Some were trained for specific purposes. Theft. Fraud. Information gathering. Manipulation. Some were placed with people in the organization. Others disappeared from the program completely. Vale told people they’d left town or gone home. I stopped believing him.”
Jessie looked at Gabriel.
“Did you know?”
He shook his head. “Not this.”
She believed him.
Daniel continued. “I found records on seven people. Vale kept psychological profiles, progress notes and evaluations. He wrote about human beings like equipment. Useful. Unstable. Adaptable. Disposable.”
Jessie’s hands curled into fists. She knew that language too. Not the exact words, but the philosophy behind them. People reduced to usefulness. Worth measured by what someone could extract from them.
For most of her adult life, Jessie had participated in a softer version of the same thing. A security guard wasn’t a person; he was an obstacle. A receptionist wasn’t a woman trying to pay her rent; she was access. A frightened employee wasn’t someone with a family; he was leverage.
Maybe that was why Vale frightened her so much. Some of him had survived inside her.
Daniel’s voice softened. “Jessie, if you’re listening, you’re probably wondering whether you’re like him.”
Her head snapped toward the recorder. Gabriel stared at it too. Daniel then gave a quiet laugh.
“You’re predictable sometimes.” Despite herself, Jessie almost smiled.
“If you’re worried you’re like Vale, that’s probably the best evidence that you’re not. Vale never questions whether he has the right to use people. You do. Even when you pretend you don’t.”
Jessie swallowed. “You really were annoyingly perceptive,” she murmured.
Gabriel’s mouth twitched. Then Daniel’s voice became serious again.
“There is one person you need to find.”
Jessie leaned closer. “Her name is Anna.” A pause followed.
“I don’t know her last name. Vale destroyed most of her records before I could copy them. She was sixteen when she entered the program, several years before Jessie. Vale considered her his first real success.”
Jessie felt a chill.
“He called her Candidate One.” Gabriel shifted beside her and Jessie noticed.
“You know the name.”
“No.”
“But something bothered you.”
Gabriel frowned. “Candidate One.”
“What about it?”
“I’ve heard Vale say it.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“How many?”
Gabriel thought. “Twenty-five, maybe twenty-six.”
Jessie stared at him. “Before me.”
“Yes.”
Daniel continued. “Anna disappeared after an incident involving Vale. I couldn’t determine what happened. According to one record, she died. According to another, she ran away. A third claimed she was transferred somewhere else. Vale kept three different versions of the same event.”
Jessie leaned against the piano. “That means none of them are true.”
Gabriel looked at her. “Or one is.”
“No. If one were true, he wouldn’t need three.”
Daniel’s recording continued. “I think Anna survived.” Jessie stopped.
“I also think she was helping me.” Gabriel looked at Jessie, but neither spoke.
“She contacted me anonymously three times. The information she gave me was accurate. Names. Accounts. Locations. She knew things only someone close to Vale could have known. The last message she sent contained five words.”
The recording crackled and then Daniel said them. “Get Jessie away from him.”
Jessie went completely still. Anna had known about her. Twenty-four years ago, someone Jessie had never met had tried to protect her.
Daniel continued. “I never found Anna. After the fire, I don’t know what happened to any of this. If Vale ever returns, find her. If she’s alive, she’ll know what he built. More importantly, she’ll know what survived.”
The recording ended.
Jessie waited, but nothing more came. She pressed play again, but the tape had reached its end.
Gabriel exhaled slowly.
“Well.”
Jessie looked at him.
“Don’t.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“You were going to say something useless.”
“Probably.”
Jessie removed the cassette carefully.
Anna. Candidate One.
She hated the name already.
Not Anna.
The number.
Vale had reduced a sixteen-year-old girl to a sequence.
Jessie looked at Daniel’s photograph.
“You knew all this and still came for me.”
Gabriel understood whom she meant.
“He loved you.”
“That doesn’t make him less stupid.”
“No.”
“It actually makes him significantly more stupid.”
“Also yes.”
Jessie stared at Daniel’s face.
Then she smiled faintly.
“Idiot.”
The word contained more affection than insult.
An officer appeared in the doorway. Jessie immediately straightened.
“They’ve got both hostages out. They’re shaken, but there don’t appear to be serious physical injuries. Paramedics are checking them now.”
Jessie closed her eyes briefly.
“Thank you.”
“And there’s something else.”
Her eyes opened.
The officer hesitated.
“We found another person in the building near the river.”
Jessie’s heart jumped. “Nathan?”
“We don’t know yet. Adult male. He was unconscious when officers found him.”
Jessie was already moving.
The officer raised a hand.
“You can’t go down there.”
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.” That stopped her. He was alive. Vale had told the truth.
Jessie hated giving him credit for anything.
“Can I see Emily?”
“When paramedics are finished.” Jessie nodded.
The officer left.
Gabriel watched her.
“Nathan’s alive.”
“Apparently.”
“That means Emily might get her father back.”
Jessie looked toward the doorway. That mattered.
More than Vale, more than Anna., more than Jessie’s memories. For one family, at least, something might still be repaired.
Twenty minutes later, Jessie stood outside an ambulance while Emily Carter sat wrapped in a grey blanket. She looked younger than sixteen now. Without the purple sweater from the photograph and without the mystery surrounding her, she was simply a frightened teenager with red eyes and trembling hands.
Mrs. Alvarez sat in the neighbouring ambulance arguing with a paramedic.
“I am perfectly capable of walking.”
“You’ve been through a traumatic event.”
“I’ve also been through childbirth twice, a hysterectomy and forty-three years of marriage. I can walk.”
Jessie smiled. Mrs. Alvarez saw her.
“You.” Jessie’s smile disappeared.
Uh-oh.
Mrs. Alvarez pointed. “My banana bread is excellent.”
Emily burst out laughing. It surprised everyone, including Emily. That’s when she covered her face and started crying. Jessie crossed to her. She didn’t touch her, she simply crouched nearby.
“Your dad is alive.”
Emily’s hands dropped. “What?”
“They found a man. We believe it’s Nathan. He’s alive.”
Emily stared at her. “Can I see him?”
“Soon.”
“Is he hurt?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Jessie hated saying it, but she wasn’t going to lie to her. Emily nodded and then she looked at Jessie.
“He told me to find you.”
Jessie’s body went still. “Who?”
“My dad.” Gabriel, standing several feet away, turned.
Jessie moved closer. “When?”
“Before they took me.”
“What exactly did he say?”
Emily wiped her face with the blanket. “He came home really late. He was scared. I’d never seen him like that before. He packed some stuff and said we had to leave.”
That explained the friend’s statement. He found us.
Emily continued. “We stayed somewhere else for two nights. Dad kept making phone calls. Then he gave me an envelope.”
Jessie listened.
“He said if anything happened to him, I had to find Jessie Wilson.”
Gabriel swore quietly.
“Did he tell you who I was?”
Emily nodded.
“He said you were someone who used to do bad things.”
Jessie glanced at Gabriel.
“At least he’s concise.” Emily almost smiled.
“He said you were trying not to anymore.”
That hurt in an entirely different way.
Jessie looked away for a moment.
“What was in the envelope?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t open it?”
“Dad told me not to.”
Smart kid.
“Where is it?” Emily hesitated. Jessie saw the mistrust immediately.
Good.
After what Emily had experienced, unquestioning trust would have worried her.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Jessie said.
Emily studied her. “My dad said you’d say that.”
Jessie blinked. Gabriel actually laughed. I guess Nathan knew her better than she’d realized.
Emily reached beneath the blanket.
The paramedics had apparently returned her personal belongings. She pulled out a thin silver chain from around her neck. A key hung from it.
Jessie stared. “Dad told me the envelope wouldn’t make sense without this.”
Jessie didn’t touch it. “Did he say what it opens?”
“No.”
“Where’s the envelope?”
Emily looked toward the church.
“I hid it.” Jessie frowned.
“Where?”
“In there.”
Of course she had. Jessie rubbed her forehead.
“You hid evidence inside the abandoned building where you were being held hostage?”
Emily looked defensive. “They hadn’t tied me up yet.”
Jessie stared at her. Emily stared back. Gabriel covered his mouth.
Jessie looked at him. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was going to point out that you two have some similarities.” Emily smiled slightly and Jessie sighed.
“Wonderful.”
Mrs. Alvarez called from the other ambulance. “She also kicked one of them.”
Jessie turned. “What?”
Emily looked embarrassed. “He got too close.”
Jessie stared at her. “Did it work?”
“He fell over.”
Jessie nodded approvingly. “Good.”
Gabriel shook his head. “Please don’t encourage the kidnapped teenager to assault people.”
Jessie looked at him. “She was already doing it without encouragement.”
Emily laughed again, this time it lasted longer.
Jessie let her. Eventually the smile disappeared from Emily’s face.
“There were two men.”
Jessie focused. “Vale and someone else?”
“No. Dr. Vale came sometimes, but there were two other men.”
Gabriel stepped closer. “Police only arrested Vale.”
Jessie looked toward the property. “Descriptions?”
Emily gave them what she could. One younger, perhaps thirties. One older. Both kept their faces partly covered. The younger man barely spoke. The older one had an accent Emily couldn’t place.
“Did either of them say a name?”
Emily thought. “One of them called the other one Mercer.”
Jessie’s heart stopped. Gabriel went pale.
“What?”
Emily looked between them. “Mercer. I’m sure.”
Jessie couldn’t breathe.
Daniel Mercer. No. Impossible. Daniel had died twenty-four years ago. Jessie had killed him. His body had been recovered. There had been an obituary, a death certificate. Gabriel had seen the aftermath.
Jessie forced herself to think. “A first name?”
Emily shook her head. “Just Mercer.”
“That could mean anything,” Gabriel said quickly. Jessie looked at him.
“Could it?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I desperately want to.”
So did Jessie.
Emily continued. “The older man got angry when he said it.”
“What did he say?”
Emily closed her eyes, trying to remember. “He said, ‘Mercer wasn’t supposed to come back.’”
Jessie stared at her. Every sound around them seemed to disappear. The ambulances, the radios, the police.
Everything.
Mercer wasn’t supposed to come back.
Not ‘Daniel is dead’.
Not Daniel.
Mercer.
A surname.
A family.
Jessie suddenly remembered something from Daniel’s obituary.
She had skimmed it too quickly.
Survived by—
Jessie turned toward Gabriel.
“Did Daniel have family?”
Gabriel hesitated.
Jessie’s stomach dropped.
“Gabriel.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“A mother. She died years ago.”
“Anyone else?”
Gabriel didn’t answer.
Jessie stepped toward him.
“Anyone else?”
“He had a brother.”
There it was.
Jessie closed her eyes.
“Name?”
Gabriel looked like he wanted to be anywhere else.
“Michael.”
“Older or younger?”
“Younger.”
“Was he involved?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did I know him?”
“I don’t think so.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I never met him.”
Jessie looked toward the ruined church.
Michael Mercer.
A brother she’d never known existed.
Daniel’s brother.
Maybe alive.
Maybe connected to Vale.
Maybe the Mercer who wasn’t supposed to come back.
Emily touched Jessie’s sleeve.
Jessie looked down.
“There was something else.”
“What?”
“The man called Mercer said something about you.”
Jessie waited.
Emily looked uncertain.
“I don’t think he knew I could hear.”
“What did he say?”
Emily swallowed.
“He said Vale was making the same mistake again.”
Jessie’s skin prickled.
“What mistake?”
“He said, ‘You keep treating Jessie like she’s the experiment.’”
Jessie glanced at Gabriel.
Emily continued.
“Then he said, ‘She was never the experiment.’”
Nobody spoke.
Jessie felt the pieces shifting again.
Vale’s obsession.
The training.
The missing candidates.
Anna.
Daniel.
Jessie.
For days, everyone had assumed Jessie was at the centre of whatever happened twenty-four years ago. Maybe that assumption was wrong.
“What did Vale say?”
Emily frowned. “I couldn’t hear all of it.”
“Anything.”
Emily thought for several seconds. “He said something like, ‘She was the proof.’”
Jessie felt cold.
Proof.
Not experiment.
Proof of what?
A paramedic approached and told Emily they needed to take her to hospital. Jessie stepped aside.
Emily caught her hand.
Jessie froze.
Physical contact still wasn’t easy.
But she didn’t pull away.
“Find my dad.”
Jessie looked at her.
“I will.”
“Promise?”
Jessie almost said yes.
The old Jessie would have.
Promises were useful. They made people trust you.
The new Jessie understood promises differently.
“I promise I won’t stop trying.”
Emily nodded.
That was enough.
Jessie watched the ambulance doors close.
Then she turned toward Gabriel.
“Michael Mercer.”
“We don’t know if it’s him.”
“No.”
“Mercer is not an uncommon name.”
“No.”
“Daniel’s brother could be dead.”
“Yes.”
“Or living in another country.”
“Yes.”
Gabriel frowned.
“Why are you agreeing with everything?”
“Because you’re right.”
“That feels suspicious.”
Jessie looked toward St. Catherine’s.
“We don’t know.”
Gabriel nodded.
“And we’re not going to invent answers because we don’t like uncertainty.”
He studied her.
“Who are you?”
“Shut up.”
A detective approached them before Gabriel could respond.
“We’ve confirmed the man found near the river is Nathan Carter.”
Jessie felt relief.
“He’s alive?”
“Yes. He’s being transported. He’s not conscious, but he’s alive.”
“Did you find anything with him?”
The detective looked at Jessie.
“Why?”
“Because Nathan stole a file.”
Gabriel turned sharply toward her.
Jessie ignored him.
The detective’s expression changed.
“What kind of file?”
Jessie exhaled.
This was the moment.
Old Jessie would have lied.
Protected herself.
Protected Gabriel.
Protected twenty-four years of secrets.
But Emily was in an ambulance because adults had spent decades hiding things.
Enough.
“A file connected to an organization that recruited vulnerable young people into criminal activity more than twenty years ago.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
Jessie continued.
“I was one of them.”
The detective stared at her.
“So was Gabriel.”
Gabriel opened his eyes.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“We’re going to need a very long conversation.”
“I suspected that.”
Jessie almost smiled.
The detective looked between them.
“Yes. We are.”
He walked away to speak with another officer.
Gabriel stared at Jessie.
“You just told the police.”
“Yes.”
“About us.”
“Some of it.”
“Voluntarily.”
“Yes.”
Gabriel looked genuinely unsettled.
“Stop looking at me like I’ve grown another head.”
“I’m adapting.”
“You should try it more often.”
Jessie turned back toward the church. For twenty-two years, secrecy had kept her alive. Now secrecy had nearly killed Emily and Mrs. Alvarez. Maybe some survival skills had expiration dates.
She returned to the piano room with an officer accompanying her. Emily explained where she’d hidden the envelope, and police recovered it rather than allowing Jessie to touch it.
That was irritating but also reasonable. Jessie waited while the detective opened it. Inside was a single sheet of paper. No criminal ledger, no list of names, no photographs – just an address. And one sentence.
Jessie leaned closer. She could see that the handwriting belonged to Nathan.
IF YOU’RE READING THIS, FIND ANNA BEFORE VALE DOES.
Below it was an address in another city.
Gabriel stared.
“Anna.” Jessie nodded.
Candidate One. The girl who had tried to save Jessie twenty-four years earlier. The person Daniel believed had survived. The woman who might know what Vale’s operation had truly been.
The detective looked at Jessie. “Who’s Anna?”
Jessie stared at the address. “I don’t know.”
For once, those words didn’t frighten her. They felt like a beginning.
Then Gabriel pointed at the bottom of the page.
“There.”
Jessie looked.
Tiny writing ran along the edge, almost hidden beneath a fold.
Four words.
She read them once.
Then again.
Her stomach tightened.
DON’T TRUST MICHAEL MERCER.
Gabriel whispered, “Well, that’s inconvenient.”
Jessie stared at the warning. Daniel’s brother. A man she couldn’t remember ever meeting. A name that had just surfaced after twenty-four years and somehow Nathan Carter had known enough to warn her about him before disappearing.
Jessie folded her arms. “We find Anna.”
Gabriel looked at her. “And Michael?”
Jessie glanced toward the ambulance carrying Nathan away. “We find him too.”
“What if Nathan’s warning is right?”
“Then we don’t trust him.”
“And if it’s wrong?”
Jessie looked down at Daniel’s photograph.
“Then I want to know why someone worked so hard to make sure we wouldn’t.”
Outside, the first hint of morning was beginning to lighten the sky. Jessie had entered St. Catherine’s believing she was returning to the worst night of her life. Instead, she’d discovered that the story hadn’t ended there.
Daniel had known about Anna.
Nathan had found Daniel’s files.
Vale had returned.
Michael Mercer had somehow entered the story.
And somewhere beneath all of it was a question nobody had answered.
If Jessie had never been the experiment, what exactly had she been proof of?
Gabriel stood beside her. “You know we’re not sleeping anytime soon.”
Jessie sighed. “I had finally gotten good at that.”
“No, you hadn’t.”
“I had improved.”
“You sleep with a chair under the bedroom doorknob.”
“That’s called home security.”
“You live on the fourth floor.”
“Criminals understand stairs.”
Gabriel smiled. Jessie looked again at the address Nathan had left.
Anna.
For twenty-four years, Jessie had lived with a hole in her memory. Now people were beginning to emerge from it.
Some wanted to save her.
Some wanted to control her.
Some might want her dead.
And Jessie had no idea which category Anna belonged to.
She folded the copy of the address and slipped it into her pocket.
Then she looked at Gabriel. “Let’s go meet Candidate One.”
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “You realize she may not want to meet us.”
Jessie started toward the door. “Then she’ll fit right in.”
Behind them, Daniel’s cassette remained on the piano, its tape finally silent after waiting more than two decades to be heard.
Jessie didn’t know it yet, but Daniel had been wrong about one thing.
There hadn’t been seven candidates before her.
There had been eight.
And one of them had spent the last twenty-four years waiting for Jessie to remember exactly what she’d done.
Come back tomorrow for the next part…
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