Gabriel did not react at first. Jessie had seen that kind of stillness before. It was not confusion. Confusion moved. It narrowed the eyes, tilted the head, searched the room for context. This was something else entirely. Gabriel’s face had emptied, as though his mind had rejected Anna’s words before they could become real.
“My daughter was never at St. Catherine’s,” he said eventually.
Anna’s eyes remained on him. “I didn’t say she was.”
“You said Vale chose her.”
“He did.”
“No. My daughter lived with her mother. Vale didn’t know where they were.”
Anna said nothing, and Gabriel looked at Jessie as though she might somehow correct this. Jessie couldn’t. She knew that look too. She had worn it herself when Gabriel told her she’d killed Daniel.
“How old was she?” Jessie asked quietly.
Gabriel’s jaw tightened. “Eight.”
The same age Anna had just given. Jessie looked at the envelope on the step. Nobody had touched it. Daniel’s handwriting stared up at them from the brown paper, impossible and deliberate.
“Tell us exactly what you know,” Jessie said.
Gabriel shook his head. “She doesn’t know anything.”
“Gabriel.”
“My daughter is alive. She’s fine.”
Jessie studied him. “When did you last speak to her?”
“This morning.”
“What did you talk about?”
His expression changed, and Jessie noticed immediately.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s not true.”
Gabriel stared at her, and Jessie softened her voice. “You don’t have to protect me from this.”
“I’m not protecting you.”
“Then who?”
His eyes shifted toward Anna. That was enough.
“Something happened,” Jessie said.
Gabriel rubbed both hands over his face. “She called me three nights ago.”
“After St. Catherine’s?”
“Yes.”
“What did she want?”
“She asked whether I’d seen you.”
Jessie went still, and Anna closed her eyes.
Gabriel continued. “I didn’t think anything of it. She knows who you are. Not everything, obviously, but she knows your name. I’ve mentioned you over the years.”
“What exactly did she ask?”
“She asked whether Jessie Wilson was back in my life.”
The wording mattered. Not whether Gabriel had heard from Jessie, but whether Jessie was back.
“What’s your daughter’s name?” Jessie asked.
Gabriel hesitated. “Rebecca.”
The name meant nothing at first. Then something shifted. Not a memory exactly, but a sensation. A child’s laughter somewhere behind a closed door.
“Rebecca what?”
“Rebecca Shaw. Her mother’s surname.”
Jessie looked at Anna. “Did Vale know her as Rebecca?”
Anna shook her head. “No.”
Gabriel’s face changed. “What did he call her?”
“R.”
Jessie felt cold.
Gabriel stepped toward Anna. “How do you know this?”
“Because Daniel showed me a file three days before the fire.”
Gabriel stared at her. “You knew my daughter was in Vale’s files before St. Catherine’s?”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing?”
“I told Daniel.”
“You should have told me.”
“I wanted to.”
“You should have told me.”
His voice rose, and Jessie moved instinctively between them, not because she believed Gabriel would hurt Anna, but because she knew what panic looked like when it needed somewhere to land.
“Gabriel.”
He stared past her. “She was eight.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Jessie held his gaze. “You’re right. I don’t. But shouting at Anna isn’t going to tell us what Vale did.”
Gabriel looked at her for a second, then stepped backward. Anna’s eyes were wet.
“I thought Daniel told you,” she said.
Gabriel laughed bitterly. “Daniel was dead three days later.”
“I know.”
“You had twenty-four years.”
“So did you.”
“What does that mean?”
“You disappeared, Gabriel.”
“To protect my family.”
“Yes. And it worked.”
“Apparently not.”
Jessie crouched beside the envelope again. “Before we do anything else, we deal with this. Daniel didn’t put that there.”
“No,” Gabriel said.
“So someone copied his handwriting, or had something he wrote. Either way, they left it to force this conversation.”
Anna frowned. “Why now?”
“Because everybody wants me looking backward, and I’m beginning to wonder what they don’t want me seeing ahead.”
Jessie straightened. “Call the detective. Tell them someone left an envelope outside Anna’s apartment.”
Gabriel stared at her. “You don’t want to open it?”
“Of course I want to open it. Unfortunately, I’m trying this irritating new thing where I don’t contaminate potential evidence because curiosity has hurt my feelings.”
While Gabriel made the call, Jessie and Anna returned inside. The apartment suddenly felt different. Anna’s carefully constructed ordinary life no longer seemed separate from the past.
“Tell me about the file,” Jessie said.
“It was thin. Much thinner than ours. There were photographs, school information, family details and psychological notes.”
Gabriel had returned in time to hear the last part. “Psychological notes? On an eight-year-old?”
“Yes.”
Jessie asked the question he couldn’t. “How did Vale get access to her?”
“I don’t know.”
Jessie started to react, then stopped. Anna wasn’t withholding for control. She was remembering something awful.
“Take your time.”
Anna looked surprised. Jessie frowned. “I can be patient for short periods.”
Anna took a breath. “Vale was interested in Rebecca because she gave him something none of us did. A second generation.”
Gabriel frowned. “What does that mean?”
“You worked for the organization before you turned against it. You were exposed to Vale’s methods even if you weren’t formally one of his candidates. Rebecca was your child.”
“He thought this was inherited?”
“No. Not biologically, at least not from what I understood. He wanted to know whether a parent’s behaviour shaped a child before he ever intervened. Fear, secrecy, hypervigilance, loyalty – the way families build rules around danger without telling children why the rules exist.”
Jessie understood immediately. Children learned far more than adults deliberately taught them. They learned which footsteps meant trouble, which moods meant silence, which questions were dangerous and which secrets kept families together.
“What did Vale call it?”
“Inherited conditioning.”
Jessie felt anger rise. “That’s nonsense. A child adapting to the environment created by a frightened parent isn’t evidence that criminal conditioning is inherited.”
“I know.”
“Vale would know too.”
Anna met her eyes. “Yes.”
That mattered.
“He wasn’t doing science,” Jessie said.
“No.”
“He was building a story that made him important.”
Anna nodded. Vale had done the same thing to Jessie. He’d found traits shaped by poverty, instability, fear and survival, then taken credit for them.
Gabriel looked up. “Then maybe he never actually did anything to her.”
Anna didn’t answer.
Jessie wished she would.
“What happened after the observations?”
“The file mentioned contact.”
Gabriel stopped breathing. “What contact?”
“I don’t know. It was shortly before the fire.”
“My daughter was living three hundred kilometres away with her mother. How could Vale possibly—”
He stopped. Jessie watched the realization arrive. Someone had travelled, or someone near Rebecca had already been connected to Vale.
“Her mother,” Jessie said. “What was her name?”
“Laura.”
“Did Laura know about the organization?”
“She knew I was involved with bad people. She didn’t know details.”
“Did she know Vale?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“What did Laura do for work?”
“She was a nurse. Mostly community health, later private clinics.”
Anna looked up sharply.
Jessie caught it. “What?”
“Vale used clinics. He didn’t always meet candidates at St. Catherine’s.”
“Was one in Laura’s city?”
Anna thought for a moment. “Yes.”
Gabriel stood. “No.”
Jessie watched him reach for his phone. “Who are you calling?”
“Rebecca.”
She didn’t stop him. He called twice. No answer.
“Maybe she’s working,” Gabriel said.
“What does she do?”
He hesitated again.
“She works in behavioural research.”
Anna went completely still.
“What kind?” Jessie asked.
“Trauma. Memory. Decision-making. She has a doctorate in psychology.”
Nobody spoke.
Not because Vale had somehow programmed an eight-year-old to become a psychologist. That would be exactly the mythology he wanted them to believe. Children sometimes grew toward the mysteries that shaped their lives. Perhaps Rebecca had spent decades studying something she didn’t know had happened around her.
“When did she start?”
“In graduate school. She was twenty-three.”
Nine years after St. Catherine’s.
“Where?”
Gabriel gave the name of a university.
Anna stood abruptly. “That name was in Daniel’s records.”
“The university?”
“Yes.”
“Connected how?”
“I don’t remember. Funding, maybe. Daniel had a list of institutions.”
“Do you still have it?”
“No. I destroyed it because Daniel told me to.”
Jessie frowned. “Why would Daniel collect evidence and then tell you to destroy part of it?”
“He said the names weren’t proof. He was afraid someone would see them and start accusing innocent people.”
Even while terrified and hunted, Daniel had understood the danger of suspicion becoming certainty.
“So we don’t assume the university was involved,” Jessie said.
Anna nodded.
Gabriel looked frustrated. “But we don’t ignore it.”
“No.”
Jessie picked up her phone. “Give Rebecca’s address and workplace to the police.”
Gabriel stared at her.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’m just adjusting to this version of you.”
“This responsible citizenship thing is becoming tedious.”
Gabriel called the detective. Jessie walked to the window and watched the bakery below closing for the evening. Normal life continued beneath them while they tried to understand a secret that had been growing for decades.
Then Jessie turned.
“Gabriel, you said Rebecca asked whether I was back in your life.”
“Yes.”
“How did she know I’d been gone?”
“I’ve told her you and I hadn’t spoken recently.”
“Exactly what did she say?”
Gabriel thought. “She asked, ‘Did Jessie come back on her own?’”
Anna stared.
Jessie’s pulse quickened. “On her own?”
“Yes. I asked what she meant, and she changed the subject.”
“That wasn’t casual.”
“No.”
“She knew something was supposed to bring me back.”
Jessie thought about the sequence: Nathan stole a file, Emily was taken, Vale resurfaced, Jessie was led to St. Catherine’s, her memories returned and Evan appeared. Now Rebecca.
“This isn’t Vale’s plan anymore.”
“How do you know?” Anna asked.
“Because Vale wanted me focused on him. His work. His importance. He wanted to stand in St. Catherine’s and watch me realize he had shaped my life. Whoever left that envelope wants me questioning everybody.”
A knock sounded at the apartment door.
Everyone froze until a voice called, “Police.”
Two officers and the detective from St. Catherine’s stood outside. The detective looked at Jessie with the weary expression of a man who had begun regretting knowing her.
“Ms. Wilson.”
“Detective.”
“I was hoping we could go twelve hours without another development.”
“I made it almost four.”
“I noticed.”
The envelope was photographed and collected before being opened. Jessie explained the messages from Evan, the planned meeting and what they had learned about Rebecca. When she admitted she intended to meet Evan, the detective stared at her.
“You’re not going alone.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“And you’re not going without us knowing where.”
Jessie considered resisting out of habit, then didn’t. “Fine.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“Stop being impressed.”
The detective opened the envelope. Inside was a single typed sentence.
REBECCA REMEMBERS YOU.
Jessie stared at it.
Nothing came.
“I never met her.”
“You never met Rebecca,” Gabriel insisted.
“How do you know?”
“Because I kept her away from everything.”
“You thought you did.”
Gabriel flinched.
Jessie regretted the words immediately. “Sorry.”
Anna suddenly said, “I’ve heard that before.”
Jessie turned. “Rebecca remembers you?”
“No. Daniel said something before the fire. He said, ‘The child remembers Jessie.’”
Gabriel stared.
“What child?” Jessie asked.
“I assumed he meant Rebecca after I found her file.”
“But he didn’t say Rebecca.”
“No.”
Jessie thought about Candidate Ten. Anna had said there was no Candidate Ten, only that Vale had chosen a child.
“How did you know the file belonged to Gabriel’s daughter?”
“Her photograph.”
“Was her name in it?”
“No.”
“Anything identifying Gabriel?”
Anna went still.
“No.”
“Then why did you think it was Rebecca?”
“Daniel told me. He showed me the photograph and said, ‘That’s Gabriel’s little girl.’”
Jessie frowned. “What did Rebecca look like at eight?”
Gabriel found an old photograph on his phone. A little girl with dark hair and serious brown eyes stood beside a bicycle.
Anna nodded. “That’s her.”
Jessie’s attention caught on a bracelet around Rebecca’s wrist. Small red, white and blue beads.
A memory hit her so suddenly she grabbed the table.
A child sat on a floor, tiny hands threading beads onto string. Jessie sat across from her. Somewhere nearby, a woman was speaking. The child held up a bracelet.
For you.
“I’ve met her.”
Gabriel stared. “Where?”
Jessie closed her eyes.
The memory strengthened. She was nineteen. Rebecca was eight. Jessie hadn’t known the child’s name. There were colouring pencils, a waiting room and a fish tank. Rebecca had stared at her until Jessie stared back, then offered her a blue pencil.
“A clinic.”
Gabriel looked horrified.
“Rebecca was at a clinic?”
“So was I.”
Anna whispered, “Vale.”
Jessie shook her head. “I don’t remember him being there.”
The memory shifted. Rebecca was drawing two houses, a road and three people. A fourth person stood far away.
Jessie had asked, “Who’s that?”
Rebecca answered, “The man who watches Daddy.”
Jessie’s heart pounded.
“Rebecca knew someone was watching you.”
“At eight?”
“Yes.”
Another fragment surfaced. Rebecca whispering, “Daddy thinks I don’t know.”
“Know what?” Jessie had asked.
“That he’s scared.”
Then Rebecca looked directly at her. “You’re scared too.”
Jessie had laughed. “I’m not scared of anything.”
Rebecca’s answer returned with painful clarity.
“That’s what Daddy says.”
Jessie opened her eyes.
“She read people.”
Anna understood. “So did you.”
Vale hadn’t chosen Rebecca because she was Gabriel’s daughter. That was merely how he’d found her. He had seen the same thing he’d seen in Jessie: a child who watched adults because adults weren’t reliable enough to explain what was happening.
“Vale thought she was another me. Not because she was destined to become me. Because he misunderstood both of us the same way. He saw survival skills and called them his discovery.”
The detective’s phone rang. He stepped away, asked several short questions and looked directly at Gabriel.
“Rebecca’s not home. Her employer says she hasn’t been there for two days.”
Gabriel went pale. “She spoke to me this morning.”
“Voice call?”
Gabriel stopped.
“No. Text.”
Jessie’s stomach dropped. “When did you last hear her voice?”
“Four days ago.”
Before St. Catherine’s.
Gabriel showed the messages. Three nights earlier Rebecca had supposedly asked, Is Jessie Wilson back in your life? Then, Did she come back on her own? This morning she’d written, Busy day. Running errands. Call you later. Love you.
Jessie stared at the wording.
“Does Rebecca say ‘Love you’?”
“Of course.”
“Exactly like that?”
Gabriel’s face changed. “No. She says, ‘Love ya, Dad.’”
The detective immediately began making calls.
Gabriel sat down.
Jessie wanted to promise him Rebecca was fine. She didn’t.
“We find out what’s true first.”
Anna stood across the room, looking troubled.
“The sentence,” she said. “Daniel saying the child remembered Jessie. Maybe it wasn’t about Rebecca remembering you then. Maybe it was about the clinic.”
Jessie nodded. “And if Rebecca remembers the clinic, she may remember why we were both there.”
The detective’s phone rang again.
“Rebecca’s vehicle has been located in the parking lot outside a closed medical building.”
Anna made a sound.
Jessie looked at her. “You know it.”
“That was one of Vale’s clinics.”
Gabriel was already moving toward the door, but the detective stopped him.
“Officers are going in.”
“My daughter is missing.”
“And if someone left her car there to bring you in, you’re doing exactly what they want.”
Gabriel looked ready to ignore him.
Jessie stepped closer. “He’s right.”
“My daughter—”
“Needs you thinking.”
That reached him.
Minutes later a photograph arrived from officers at the clinic. The old door stood open. Beside it someone had painted three short vertical lines crossed by one diagonal slash.
Evan’s symbol.
Means I was here.
“He has Rebecca,” Gabriel said.
Jessie stared at the photograph.
Maybe.
But it didn’t fit.
Evan claimed to hate what Vale had done. Kidnapping Rebecca would make him exactly what he despised.
Jessie’s phone rang.
Evan.
She answered on speaker. “If you hurt her—”
“I don’t have Rebecca.”
Gabriel moved toward the phone. “You expect me to believe you?”
“No.”
Evan sounded breathless. For the first time Jessie heard genuine urgency.
“The meeting tomorrow is off.”
“Why?”
“Because Michael found her.”
“Rebecca?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“The clinic.”
“We know. Her car was found there.”
Evan went silent.
“You already know?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re too late.”
Gabriel gripped the table.
“Too late for what?” Jessie asked.
“Rebecca isn’t Candidate Ten.”
“We know.”
“You don’t understand. Rebecca wasn’t chosen to replace you. She was chosen to replace Michael.”
Jessie frowned.
“Vale thought Michael was unstable,” Evan explained. “Too angry. Too aware of what had been done to him. He wanted to know whether he could start earlier with someone else and get a cleaner result.”
Gabriel whispered, “My daughter was eight.”
“I know.”
Jessie heard something in Evan’s voice. “You met her.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Years later.”
“What did you do to her?” Gabriel demanded.
“Nothing. I helped her.”
“How?”
“I told her the truth.”
“When?”
“Eleven years ago.”
Rebecca would have been twenty-one, around the time she began moving toward psychology and behavioural research.
“You told her about Vale.”
“Some of it.”
“About me?”
“Yes.”
“Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“Michael?”
Evan’s silence answered.
Jessie understood. “You told her about Michael.”
“Yes.”
“What did she do?”
Gabriel answered before Evan could.
“She started asking questions.”
“Yes,” Evan said.
Jessie felt the story change. Rebecca wasn’t simply a victim waiting to be found, she’d been investigating for eleven years.
“What did she find?”
“Everything Daniel couldn’t. The funding. The institutions. The later program. The Mercers.”
“Who funded Vale?”
“I don’t know. Rebecca never told me. She stopped trusting me three years ago.”
“Why?”
“Because she discovered what I did after the fire.”
“What did you do?”
“I worked for Vale.”
The confession landed almost quietly.
“For how long?”
“Six years.”
“You hated him. He nearly killed you.”
“Yes.”
“You came back for me.”
“Yes.”
“And then you worked for him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To find Candidate Ten.”
Jessie stopped.
“You told me there was a tenth.”
“There was.”
“Anna said there wasn’t.”
“Anna didn’t know. Vale told you he’d chosen another child. That was why you agreed to forget. You believed if you gave him what he wanted, he’d leave her alone.”
“Rebecca.”
“No.”
Jessie’s stomach dropped.
“Then who?”
“I spent six years trying to find out.”
“And?”
“I found her. She wasn’t eight. Vale lied about the child’s age because he knew you’d sacrifice yourself faster if you believed she was little.”
Jessie closed her eyes.
Of course he did.
“How old was Candidate Ten?”
“Seventeen.”
“What was her name?”
Evan hesitated.
“Laura.”
Gabriel made a broken sound.
“Rebecca’s mother?” Jessie asked.
“Yes.”
The timeline shifted violently. Laura had been an adult when Rebecca was eight.
“Seventeen when Vale first chose her?”
“Yes.”
“Years before Rebecca?”
“Yes.”
Gabriel stared at the phone. “I met Laura when she was twenty.”
Evan said nothing.
Gabriel understood. “She already knew Vale.”
“Yes.”
“Did she know who I was?”
“Yes.”
Gabriel sat down.
Jessie understood why Vale could reach Rebecca despite Gabriel believing his family had been separate. Rebecca had been born into a secret neither parent had fully explained.
“What happened to Laura?”
Gabriel answered. “She died fourteen years ago. Cancer.”
Evan spoke quietly. “She had cancer. But that’s not what killed her.”
Gabriel stared at the phone.
“What are you saying?”
“Laura died by suicide.”
Gabriel shook his head. “No. I saw the records.”
“I know.”
“The hospital—”
“I know.”
“Rebecca was there.”
“I know.”
Jessie closed her eyes.
Another manufactured truth.
“Why hide it?”
“Because Laura left something behind.”
“A recording?”
“Yes. For Rebecca.”
Gabriel covered his face.
“Laura told her everything,” Evan continued. “Vale. Daniel. The candidates. Michael. Me.”
“And Jessie?” Gabriel asked.
“Yes.”
Jessie stared at the floor. “What did Laura say about me?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never heard the recording.”
“Who has?”
“Rebecca.”
“Anyone else?”
“Michael.”
There it was again.
“What was on the recording that made Michael come back?”
“I don’t know.”
Jessie believed him.
“What does Rebecca know?”
“Enough that Michael has spent three years looking for her.”
“And now he found her.”
“Yes.”
Jessie stared toward the window. Somewhere police were searching the abandoned clinic where she and Rebecca had once sat together without understanding that adults around them were documenting their fear.
“Evan, you said Michael found her. How do you know?”
Silence.
“Evan.”
“Because he called me twenty minutes ago.”
“What did he say?”
“He said Vale was wrong.”
“About what?”
“About you being the proof. He said you were only the rehearsal.”
Anna whispered, “Then who was the proof?”
Jessie already knew.
“Rebecca.”
“Yes.”
Rebecca had been watched at eight. She’d grown up, become a psychologist, learned the truth and spent eleven years investigating Vale. Vale would look at that and claim his work had continued.
But perhaps Rebecca had spent her adult life doing the opposite.
Understanding trauma instead of exploiting it.
Studying memory instead of stealing it.
Helping people instead of controlling them.
“What does Michael want from her?”
“Laura’s recording.”
“Does Rebecca have it?”
“I don’t know.”
Jessie looked at Gabriel. “Where would she keep something important?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m her father. She loves me, but she thinks I worry too much and interfere.”
Jessie looked at Anna. “Sounds exhausting.”
Gabriel ignored her.
“If she had something dangerous, she wouldn’t keep it at home or work. She’d hide it somewhere ordinary.”
That sounded familiar.
“Rebecca has a locker at the community theatre,” he said. “She volunteers there. Props, sets, fundraising. She’s always leaving things.”
Jessie stared at him. “A psychologist who hides things in a theatre.”
“She likes musicals.”
“That’s deeply unfortunate.”
This time Gabriel almost laughed.
The information went to police. Forty minutes later, the detective called. They had found Rebecca’s locker.
Inside was a small metal box.
No recording.
No documents.
Only a photograph.
Ten young people stood outside St. Catherine’s.
Not nine.
Ten.
Jessie recognized herself, Anna, Evan and several others. At the far end stood a seventeen-year-old girl.
Laura.
Candidate Ten.
Behind them stood Daniel, alive and smiling. His hands rested on the shoulders of two people.
Jessie on one side.
Laura on the other.
On the back Rebecca had written:
My mother told me Daniel chose Jessie for a reason. He knew she was the only one Vale could never keep.
Jessie stared at the words.
For days she had been asking whether Vale created her, whether Daniel manipulated her and whether Evan had been used to replace one loyalty with another.
Rebecca had apparently reached a different conclusion.
Jessie hadn’t been proof that Vale’s system worked.
She may have been proof it could fail.
Her phone buzzed.
An unknown number.
A photograph showed Rebecca sitting in a chair in an unfamiliar room. She was alive, unrestrained and furious. Beside her stood a man in his early fifties.
Jessie had never seen him before.
But she knew who he was.
Michael.
The first message read: Rebecca isn’t my prisoner.
Then another: Ask her yourself.
Jessie’s phone rang.
She answered.
A woman’s voice spoke, calm and controlled.
“Jessie Wilson?”
“Yes.”
“My father is with you.”
Jessie handed the phone to Gabriel.
“Rebecca?”
His voice broke.
“Dad, I’m fine.”
Gabriel closed his eyes. “Where are you?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Are you with Michael?”
“Yes.”
“Did he take you?”
“No. I went to him.”
“Why?”
“Because I found Mom’s recording.”
Gabriel sat down.
“Your mother.”
“I know.”
He couldn’t speak.
Rebecca’s voice softened. “I know everything, Dad.”
Gabriel swallowed. “Then come home.”
“I can’t yet.”
“Why?”
“Because Mom left one thing out of the recording. She never said who helped Vale after Daniel died.”
Jessie looked at Anna.
“Who?” Gabriel asked.
“I found the financial records.”
Jessie felt dread.
“Rebecca,” she said, “before you tell us anything, are you safe? Can you leave if you want?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Jessie believed her.
“For now, that’s enough. What did you find?”
“Vale’s program didn’t survive because Vale moved it. Someone else rebuilt it.”
“Michael?”
“No.”
“Evan?”
“No.”
“Who?”
Rebecca was silent.
Then she said, “You.”
Jessie stared at the phone.
Gabriel shook his head. “No.”
Anna whispered, “That’s impossible.”
Jessie said nothing.
“Not knowingly,” Rebecca continued. “At least, I don’t think knowingly. After Daniel died, before you erased your memories, you moved money.”
Jessie remembered the motel. Cash across a bed. Documents. People being sent away.
“I was getting candidates out.”
“Some of the money did that.”
“Some?”
“Yes.”
“Where did the rest go?”
“To a foundation.”
Rebecca gave the name.
Jessie didn’t recognize it.
Anna did.
“No.”
Jessie looked at her.
“That foundation funded the clinic.”
The room went silent.
“I funded Vale?”
“You funded something,” Rebecca said. “Whether you knew what it became is what Michael and I are trying to determine.”
Jessie closed her eyes. Twenty-four years ago, frightened and grieving, she had apparently moved money through a foundation. Perhaps she thought she was helping. Perhaps she’d been manipulated. Perhaps something worse was true.
“Do you have proof?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Rebecca sounded surprised. “You believe me?”
“No. But I believe you deserve to show me.”
There was a pause.
Then Rebecca laughed softly. “My mother said you’d say something like that.”
Jessie’s throat tightened.
“Where do we meet?”
Gabriel shook his head, but Jessie raised a hand.
“Not tonight,” Rebecca said.
“Why?”
“Because someone followed me to Michael.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know.”
“Vale’s people?”
“Maybe.”
“Evan?”
Evan’s voice came from the other phone. “Not me.”
Rebecca heard him. “You have Evan there?”
“On another phone.”
“Put him on speaker.”
Jessie did.
“Hello, Rebecca,” Evan said.
“You lied to me.”
“Yes.”
“You told me Candidate Ten disappeared.”
“I thought protecting you from Laura’s involvement would help.”
“Everyone keeps protecting people with lies.”
Jessie almost laughed. “I like her.”
Gabriel looked offended. “She’s my daughter.”
“I can tell.”
Rebecca continued. “Evan, tell Jessie what Daniel called the plan.”
Evan went silent.
“What plan?” Jessie asked.
“Second Life.”
The phrase was familiar.
“What was Second Life?”
“Daniel’s contingency plan. If Vale won.”
“And what did it involve?”
“You.”
Jessie rubbed her forehead. “I’m becoming very tired of being everyone’s plan.”
“Daniel knew he might die. He knew Vale might get to you, so he designed a way for the surviving candidates to disappear, build new identities and eventually reconnect.”
“That sounds like what I did after the fire.”
“Yes.”
“That was Second Life?”
“Part of it.”
“What was the rest?”
Rebecca answered. “The foundation.”
Jessie went still.
“You’re saying Daniel created it.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did it fund Vale’s clinic?”
“That’s what we’re trying to understand.”
Jessie looked at Anna. “Did Daniel ever mention Second Life?”
“No.”
Gabriel shook his head too.
Evan said, “He didn’t tell everyone.”
“Why tell me?”
“He trusted you.”
Jessie almost laughed. “Apparently not enough to tell me before he died.”
“He did. You forgot.”
Of course.
Rebecca interrupted. “Jessie, the foundation still exists.”
“After twenty-four years?”
“Yes.”
“Who’s running it?”
“We don’t know.”
“What does it do now?”
“Officially, it funds trauma recovery programs, youth shelters, legal aid, housing assistance and research into memory and PTSD.”
Jessie stared. “That sounds good.”
“Some of it is.”
“And the rest?”
“We found payments that don’t fit.”
“To who?”
“Former candidates.”
“Payments to help them?”
“Maybe.”
“What else could they be?”
“Payments to keep them quiet.”
The room became still. Jessie felt the old instinct rise. Follow the money. Find whoever controlled it. Find the weak link. For twenty-two years that instinct had made her an exceptional criminal. Now perhaps it could make her useful.
“Rebecca, you said Michael isn’t holding you.”
“He isn’t.”
“Then leave.”
“I won’t.”
“Why?”
“Because Michael has the original Second Life ledger.”
Jessie closed her eyes.
“And he wants something in exchange.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“You.”
Gabriel stood. “No.”
Jessie looked at him, then back toward the phone.
“Michael says Daniel left instructions only you can interpret.”
“Why?”
“He doesn’t know.”
Jessie remembered Daniel’s irritating patience, his terrible piano playing and the way he’d understood her before she understood herself.
Then another memory surfaced.
Daniel’s voice.
If I ever give you something that looks obvious, assume I’m insulting you.
Jessie smiled faintly.
“What?” Gabriel asked.
“I remember something Daniel taught me. He said obvious answers were insulting.”
Evan laughed softly. “He said that constantly.”
Rebecca sent a photograph of an old black ledger. Embossed on the cover was a small tree inside a circle – the same symbol Jessie remembered from the clinic.
Underneath, Rebecca had written: Michael says the first page is for you.
A second photograph arrived with Daniel’s handwriting covered the page. Most of it was numbers and names. At the bottom was a message.
Jessie read it aloud. “If you’re reading this, Vale succeeded in making you forget me. But if you’re reading it with other people beside you, then he failed at the only thing that mattered.”
Jessie’s voice caught.
Anna stepped closer. “What does the rest say?”
Jessie looked at the final line.
“Jessie, Second Life was never a program. It was a promise: if any of us survived, none of us would have to survive alone.”
Nobody spoke.
Vale had spent years studying loyalty as something that could be manufactured, redirected and exploited.
Daniel had built something on the opposite idea.
Choice.
People choosing to come back. Choosing to help. Choosing to trust after betrayal. Choosing not to leave one another behind.
Then Jessie noticed writing on the page beneath it.
Only three words were visible.
JESSIE MUST NEVER—
“Rebecca. Turn the page.”
Silence.
“Rebecca?”
Michael’s voice came through the phone.
“No.”
Jessie’s expression hardened. “Michael.”
“Hello, Jessie.”
She knew immediately this was the man Vale feared. Not because his voice was threatening, but because it wasn’t.
“What does the next page say?”
“You’re not ready.”
Jessie almost laughed. “I have had twenty-four years of people deciding what I’m ready to know. That particular service is no longer required.”
“The next page explains why you erased your memory.”
“I thought I already knew.”
“No.”
“Then tell me.”
“You didn’t erase your memories because of Daniel. You didn’t do it because of Evan, Candidate Ten or Vale.”
Jessie waited.
“Why did I do it?”
“Because of Second Life.”
Jessie looked at Daniel’s words.
“What about it?”
“Daniel built Second Life to save us. You discovered someone had turned it into the exact thing he died trying to destroy.”
“Who?”
Michael went silent.
Jessie felt the answer before he gave it.
“You did.”
Gabriel shook his head.
Anna whispered, “No.”
Jessie simply looked at the ledger.
“Show me the next page.”
A photograph arrived.
At the top of the page, underlined twice, Daniel had written:
JESSIE MUST NEVER KNOW.
Beneath it:
If she remembers what happened after the fire, she will blame herself. She shouldn’t. I made the first mistake. Vale made the second. Jessie made the third.
Jessie read on.
Then stopped.
Her hands began to shake.
Gabriel moved beside her. “What does it say?”
Jessie couldn’t answer.
Anna took the phone gently. Her face changed.
“What?” Gabriel demanded.
Anna looked at Jessie.
The next line contained a name.
Not Vale.
Not Evan.
Not Michael.
Not Laura.
A name none of them had mentioned.
Sophie Wilson.
Gabriel frowned. “Who’s Sophie?”
Jessie stared at the wall.
She didn’t know.
But her body did.
Her heart pounded and her hands trembled as somewhere behind the wall Vale had built inside her memory, a little girl began laughing.
“Sophie,” Jessie whispered.
Then the first real memory broke through.
A child was running toward her, small arms wrapping tightly around Jessie’s waist. Jessie remembered looking down into a smiling face and hearing a voice call her something she had not heard in twenty-four years. Not Jessie. Not Candidate Nine. Not thief. Not proof.
“Aunt Jessie.”
Jessie stopped breathing.
And suddenly, she understood why she had once been willing to forget everything.
Come back tomorrow for the next part…
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