Chapter 7 - Why Vanessa Built the Wall
Vanessa sat very still.
I had never hated silence more.
"You renovated that room?" I asked.
"Yes."
Claire stood beside Lily, arms folded across her chest.
"You told me the room already existed."
"It did."
"Then what did you change?"
Vanessa looked at me.
"I hid the door."
The answer was so simple I almost missed what it meant.
"You sealed Claire in."
"No."
"You covered the only entrance."
"There are two entrances."
I remembered the second steel door.
"The tunnel."
"Yes."
"So you knew somebody could reach her from behind."
"I was trying to stop Richard from moving her through the house."
"By making it harder for me to find her?"
Vanessa's voice rose for the first time.
"You weren't supposed to find her until I had the archive!"
Lily woke up.
All four of us froze.
She sat upright, confused and frightened.
Claire went to her immediately.
"Hey. It's okay."
Lily looked at Vanessa.
"Why did you cover my mouth?"
Vanessa's face collapsed.
I wanted to interrupt.
I didn't.
Vanessa knelt several feet away.
"Because when you said you heard knocking, I panicked."
"You hurt me."
"I know."
"You said Mom was dead."
Vanessa cried then. Quietly.
"I lied to you."
Lily moved closer to Claire.
"Why?"
"Because your mom asked me to keep you safe until she could come home."
Claire stared at her.
"I never asked you to tell her I was dead."
"No. You asked me to protect her. I made choices after you disappeared. Some were wrong."
That was the first honest thing Vanessa had said all night.
I asked the question Aaron had planted.
"Where is the archive?"
Vanessa wiped her face.
"I don't have it. I have a key to it."
She opened her necklace clasp.
A thin black wafer slid into her palm.
"This decrypts the Foundation index. Richard believes I lost it years ago."
Claire whispered, "You had that the whole time?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Vanessa looked at her.
"Because you were still willing to trust Daniel."
I almost laughed.
"And that made me dangerous?"
"It made you vulnerable."
"To my father?"
"To your need to believe your family was better than the evidence."
I wanted to argue.
Then I remembered how often I had dismissed Claire's questions about my father's foundation as "family accounting nonsense."
Vanessa stood.
"The index is on a server in one of the old Hayes properties. Richard moved it after his funeral."
"Which property?"
She looked at me.
"The house where Emily was kept."
My sister.
"Where?"
"Santa Fe."
Claire frowned.
"That's where Subject Two's number was registered."
Vanessa nodded.
Then her phone buzzed.
A photograph appeared from an unknown number.
It showed Blackthorn House from the driveway.
My father stood on the front steps.
Beside him was Aaron.
And between them, held by the shoulder, was Dr. Evan Brooks's teenage son.
The message beneath the photo read:
BRING THE KEY.
BRING CLAIRE.
OR SUBJECT NINE BEGINS TONIGHT.
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