Chapter 38: The Second Boy

 

The surgeon caught Elara's arm before she reached the intensive care doors.

“She is conscious, but barely,” he said. “The bullet damaged her lung. She must not be made to talk for long.”

“Then she should have said less to you.”

He let go. Elara regretted the sharpness immediately, but not enough to apologize. Odette had survived an assassin's bullet. She had also named a woman buried years ago.

Rhys followed her down the corridor.

“You don't have to come in,” she said.

“I know.”

He stayed beside her.

Beyond the glass, Odette looked impossibly small. Tubes crossed her chest. A monitor kept time beside her bed, each beep accusing the silence.

Elara approached slowly.

“Ma petite,” Odette whispered through dry lips.

“Don't.” Elara drew a chair close. “Don't make me forgive you just because you nearly died.”

Odette's mouth twitched.

“Never worked before.”

Elara caught her hand. The skin was papery and cold.

“The doctor says you mentioned my mother.”

Odette's smile disappeared.

Her eyes moved to Rhys.

“You brought him.”

“He's my husband.”

The words came out before Elara could measure them. Rhys looked at her, startled. She kept her eyes on Odette.

“Tell us what you meant.”

Odette struggled to draw a breath. Elara reached for the call button, but the old woman tightened her grip.

“Not what she did to him,” Odette rasped. “What she did for him.”

Rhys stepped closer.

“In the clinic?”

A tiny nod.

“Lucille found out the boys were being given something. She took samples. She told Augustin.” Odette winced, waiting for the pain to ease. “He promised an inquiry.”

“Boys?” Elara repeated.

Odette closed her eyes.

“Two rooms. Same corridor.”

Rhys stared at her.

“I remember a corridor,” he said softly. “Blue tiles. A clock that never worked.”

Odette's eyes opened.

“Then the tea hasn't taken everything.”

Elara felt the words settle heavily in her chest.

“Who was in the other room?”

Odette's fingers dug into her palm.

“Ask Marguerite.”

The monitor began to beep faster.

A nurse entered, checked the readings, and motioned firmly toward the door.

“That's enough. She needs rest.”

Elara stood reluctantly.

Odette caught her sleeve one last time.

“Don't show anyone the original photograph,” she whispered. “They only sent a copy because they couldn't find—”

A cough seized her. The nurse moved between them, reaching for the oxygen mask.

Elara was pushed gently but decisively into the corridor.

Behind the glass, Odette reached toward the empty space where Elara had stood. Elara almost went back. Then she saw the blood-dark dressing beneath the hospital gown and forced herself to keep walking. Questions could wait. One more reckless demand might cost her the only person still alive who had known Lucille.

 

Rhys walked past the waiting chairs without looking at them.

Elara followed him into an empty stairwell, where he stopped beneath a fluorescent light.

“Two boys,” he said.

“Maybe she meant two patients.”

“No. I remember the clock.”

He pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead.

“My grandfather told me those memories were dreams. I was seven, and I believed him.”

“You were seven,” Elara said. “You were supposed to believe the people caring for you.”

He turned away.

She could have left him to his anger. Instead she stepped closer and rested her hand between his shoulder blades.

Rhys went still.

“I can't tell you what happened,” she said. “But I won't let them tell you what you remember.”

For a moment his hand covered hers.

Then Priya called.

“Elara, the photograph was sent from a prepaid number,” she said. “But I found the original file metadata. It was photographed today.”

“Today?”

“The location data puts it inside the old Saint-Claire records annex. Whoever sent it wanted us to think of the past, but they took the picture this morning.”

“Does the annex still exist?”

“It's all that remains of the clinic. A private company keeps its archived files there. Tobias has located the entrance.”

Rhys straightened.

“Send the address.”

“I already have a team heading there.”

A pause.

“Rhys, I need you to sit down.”

“Why?”

“Someone entered the annex twenty minutes ago using a Calloway security credential.”

“Whose?”

Priya's next words came slowly.

“Yours.”

Elara looked at Rhys. His phone was still in his hand. His identification card was clipped to his jacket, exactly where it had been all night.

Then Priya sent a security image.

A man stood in the annex doorway, his face turned toward the camera.

Rhys stopped breathing.

Because the man wearing his security badge was Dr. Sebastian Vale.

And beside Vale stood Aunt Marguerite, holding a blue folder marked with a silver iris.