Chapter 11 - The Bloodline
"What are you talking about?" I demanded, holding Toby tighter against my chest. "Elena is at the house!"
"Elena isn't at the house," Cross said, stepping back so I could see his cruiser's dashboard terminal. "We checked the hospital security feeds ten minutes ago. Elena never went to County General. She never checked into the emergency room."
"She called me from there! She said she heard Vance talking!"
"She lied to you, Mark," Cross said, tossing the yellow file onto the Subaru's hood. "Elena didn't marry you because she loved you. She married you because your mother ran the genetic inheritance trust for Apex Bio-Dynamics."
The air left my lungs. "Elena? My wife?"
"Her real name isn't Elena Miller. It's Helena Vance," Cross said, opening the folder to a birth certificate from 1994. "She’s your half-sister. Born from your father’s second family in Seattle. The family your mother paid three million dollars to bury thirty years ago."
I felt like the ground had dropped out from beneath my feet. "No. That's impossible. We’ve been married for eight years. We have a child together!"
"And that child is the only direct genetic heir who can dissolve the family trust," Cross said, his voice flat and merciless. "Your mother found out Elena's real identity two weeks ago when she ran Toby's preschool blood panel. That wasn't blackberry cobbler she kicked out of Toby's hands today, Mark. It was a synthesized blocker. She wasn't trying to kill him. She was trying to prevent Elena from harvesting his bone marrow for the transfer protocol."
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
A video call request flashed on the screen: ELENA.
I tapped accept with a thumb that felt completely numb.
Elena’s face appeared on the display.
She wasn't crying. The cut on her forehead had been cleaned, taped shut with butterfly bandages. She was sitting comfortably on the living room sofa in our home, sipping a cup of hot black coffee.
"Did you give him the green shot, Mark?" she asked smoothly.
"Elena... what did you do?"
"I asked you a question, Mark," she said, setting her mug down on the glass table. "Did you use the green one?"
"Yes."
May you like
She smiled, a cold, elegant tilt of her lips that made my blood run cold. "Good boy. The green one isn't the antidote. The green one is the activator. Thank you for finishing the job for me."
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