PART 3: THE NIGHT EVERYONE LIED
Mercer stared at the photograph on my phone for so long that I finally grabbed his arm.
“What didn’t you tell me?”
He swallowed.
“Nathan, we need to get somewhere secure.”
“My wife is tied up in my living room and a woman who supposedly disappeared fifteen years ago is standing behind her. I’m done going anywhere until somebody tells me the truth.”
His eyes shifted toward the station entrance.
Then toward the parking lot.
That tiny movement told me everything.
Mercer was afraid someone was watching us.
“Get in my car,” he said.
“No.”
“Nathan—”
“Talk.”
His jaw tightened.
Finally, he pulled me toward a concrete stairwell beside the building.
The heavy door slammed behind us.
Mercer lowered his voice.
“October 8, 2011 wasn’t the first time Claire Holloway disappeared.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“She disappeared once before.”
“When?”
“Four months earlier.”
My anger briefly gave way to confusion.
“That wasn’t in the file.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because there was never a report.”
“Then how do you know?”
Mercer looked me directly in the eye.
“Because I found her.”
The stairwell suddenly felt colder.
“You said you inherited the case eight years ago.”
“I did.”
“Then how could you have found Claire in 2011?”
Mercer closed his eyes.
“When I told you I inherited the official investigation eight years ago, that was true.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I wasn’t a detective in Bellridge back then.”
“What were you?”
“A deputy in the next county.”
My pulse quickened.
“And you found Claire?”
“On June 17, 2011, at approximately two in the morning.”
“Where?”
“Walking barefoot along County Road 6.”
He paused.
“She was covered in blood.”
I felt my stomach tighten.
“Whose blood?”
“We never found out.”
Mercer continued before I could interrupt.
“She was disoriented. Terrified. She had bruises around both wrists. She kept asking me not to take her home.”
“Why?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
“What did you do?”
Mercer looked ashamed.
“I took her to a hospital.”
“And?”
“She disappeared from the emergency room before sunrise.”
“Again?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“I filed an incident report.”
“Then why wasn’t it in Claire’s missing-person file?”
“Because the report disappeared.”
I stared at him.
“Police records don’t just disappear.”
“I know.”
“And you never questioned that?”
“I questioned everything.”
“Apparently not enough.”
Mercer accepted that without defending himself.
Then he said, “Three days later, Claire came to my apartment.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
“She knew my name from the report. She knocked on my door at eleven at night.”
“What did she want?”
“She wanted help.”
Mercer’s voice became quieter.
“She told me someone was trying to erase her.”
I almost laughed because the sentence sounded ridiculous.
Then I remembered the photograph of two identical women.
I remembered Rebecca saying Claire was her sister.
And I stopped laughing.
“What did she mean by erase?”
“She said someone had been changing records connected to her family. Medical records. School files. Birth certificates.”
“Who?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
“Why?”
“Because she said I would think she was insane.”
Mercer rubbed his face.
“Then she told me she had a twin.”
Rebecca.
My chest tightened.
“Did she give you her name?”
“Yes.”
“Rebecca?”
“No.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“The name Claire gave me was Rachel.”
Every answer created another question.
“Then who is Rebecca?”
“I don’t know.”
“You told me they were sisters.”
“Your wife told you that.”
“And you believed her.”
“I believed the photograph.”
I suddenly understood.
“You don’t know which woman in that photograph is which.”
“No.”
The realization hit hard.
We had assumed the woman in front was Claire because the photograph had been stored in Claire’s family file.
But nobody had identified the woman in the mirror.
What if we had it backward?
My phone buzzed.
Another message from the unknown number.
MIDNIGHT IS STILL THE DEADLINE.
Below it was a second photograph.
Rebecca was still bound to the couch.
But something had changed.
The woman standing behind her was gone.
On the coffee table sat a small black box.
I recognized it immediately.
My father’s old lockbox.
My blood ran cold.
“What is that?” Mercer asked.
“It belonged to my father.”
“Why would Claire have it?”
“I don’t know.”
My father, Henry Brooks, had died nine years earlier.
He had been an accountant.
Quiet.
Predictable.
The kind of man who saved every receipt and polished his shoes every Sunday.
That lockbox had been in his office for as long as I could remember.
After his death, I inherited it.
But I had never opened it.
I didn’t have the key.
Eventually, Rebecca suggested storing it in the attic.
I hadn’t thought about it in years.
Until now.
Another message arrived.
YOUR FATHER KNEW CLAIRE.
I felt my knees weaken.
“That’s impossible.”
Mercer read the message over my shoulder.
“Was your father ever in Ohio?”
“Not that I know of.”
“What did he do for work?”
“He was an accountant.”
“For whom?”
“Different companies.”
“Names.”
“I don’t know all of them.”
Mercer stared at me.
“You need to think.”
I tried.
My father had traveled when I was young.
Chicago.
Pittsburgh.
Cleveland.
Cleveland.
My stomach dropped.
“He worked in Cleveland for a while.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. Maybe fifteen or sixteen years ago.”
Mercer and I exchanged a look.
Exactly when Claire disappeared.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
Mercer reached for it.
“Put it on speaker.”
I answered.
Neither of us spoke.
For several seconds, all I heard was breathing.
Then a woman said:
“Nathan?”
It sounded like Rebecca.
Exactly like Rebecca.
“Who is this?”
“You already know.”
“Claire?”
A soft laugh.
“That depends on who told you my name.”
I looked at Mercer.
“Where is my wife?”
“Safe.”
“You tied her to a couch.”
“For her protection.”
“Protection from who?”
The woman went silent.
Then she said:
“From Detective Mercer.”
Mercer’s face hardened.
“That’s enough.”
The woman laughed again.
“Oh, Thomas. You still sound exactly the same.”
My eyes snapped toward him.
Mercer said nothing.
“You know him,” I said into the phone.
“I know what he did.”
Mercer stepped closer.
“Claire, where is Rebecca?”
The woman’s voice changed instantly.
“Don’t call me Claire.”
Mercer froze.
I felt my heartbeat pounding against my ribs.
“Then what should we call you?” I asked.
“Rachel.”
The name hit me like a punch.
Mercer whispered, “Jesus.”
Rachel continued.
“Claire Holloway died fifteen years ago.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“But you look exactly like her.”
“We were twins.”
“Then Rebecca—”
“Rebecca is not my sister.”
Everything stopped.
I looked at Mercer.
He looked just as stunned as I felt.
“What?”
“Your wife is not Claire.”
Rachel’s voice trembled slightly.
“She isn’t Rachel.”
“Then who is she?”
“That’s what your father spent years trying to discover.”
I gripped the phone.
“Stop speaking in riddles.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“Then tell me the truth.”
Rachel was silent.
Finally she said:
“Open your father’s lockbox.”
“I don’t have the key.”
“Rebecca does.”
My eyes moved toward the photograph of my wife bound to the couch.
“Why would Rebecca have my father’s key?”
“Because your father gave it to her.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It will.”
“Rachel, who is my wife?”
Before she answered, I heard something in the background.
A door.
Then footsteps.
Rachel’s breathing changed.
“Someone’s here.”
“Who?”
“I have to go.”
“Rachel!”
“Do not trust Mercer.”
The line went dead.
Mercer immediately grabbed my arm.
“She’s manipulating you.”
I pulled away.
“She knew you.”
“She knew my name fifteen years ago.”
“She knew your voice.”
“Nathan—”
“She said Claire died.”
Mercer looked at me.
“Rachel was unstable.”
“How convenient.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“No. You’re telling me pieces of it.”
I stepped backward.
“Why did she tell me not to trust you?”
“Because fifteen years ago I made a mistake.”
“What mistake?”
Mercer looked away.
I waited.
Finally, he spoke.
“I told someone where Claire was hiding.”
My anger vanished.
“What?”
“After she came to my apartment, I contacted her father.”
“Why?”
“I thought she needed her family.”
“And?”
“Her father picked her up.”
Mercer’s voice cracked.
“I never saw Claire again.”
The date suddenly clicked.
“October 8?”
He nodded.
“The night she officially disappeared.”
My skin went cold.
“You handed her over to the people she was afraid of.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Did you tell investigators?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Claire’s father was powerful.”
“How powerful?”
Mercer looked at me.
“Powerful enough to make police reports disappear.”
“Who was he?”
“Dr. Samuel Holloway.”
The name meant nothing to me.
But apparently my face changed anyway because Mercer narrowed his eyes.
“You recognize it?”
“No.”
Then I remembered.
Not the name.
The initials.
S.H.
My father’s lockbox had those initials scratched underneath it.
I had noticed them years ago.
I assumed they were from the manufacturer.
“What did Holloway do?”
I asked.
“He was a psychiatrist.”
“Where?”
Mercer hesitated.
“At a private behavioral research facility outside Bellridge.”
“What kind of research?”
“That’s where things become complicated.”
“I think we passed complicated an hour ago.”
Mercer nodded.
“The facility specialized in memory.”
I stared at him.
“Memory?”
“Trauma. Identity disorders. Suggestibility. Recovered memory. That kind of thing.”
My stomach twisted.
“And Claire?”
“According to Rachel, Claire wasn’t just his daughter.”
“What does that mean?”
“She was one of his subjects.”
I felt sick.
Before I could ask more, the stairwell door opened.
A uniformed officer appeared.
“Detective?”
Mercer turned.
The officer looked at me.
Then back at Mercer.
“There’s someone here asking for Mr. Brooks.”
My pulse jumped.
“Who?”
The officer hesitated.
“A woman.”
Mercer and I exchanged a look.
“What woman?” he asked.
“She says her name is Rebecca Brooks.”
My blood froze.
“That’s impossible.”
The officer frowned.
“She showed ID.”
I pulled out my phone and showed him the photograph.
“My wife is tied up inside my house.”
The officer stared at the screen.
Then slowly looked toward the hallway.
“That’s the woman waiting downstairs.”
Nobody moved.
Mercer drew his weapon.
“Stay behind me.”
We followed him through the corridor.
Every step felt louder than the last.
At the end of the hall was a small interview room with a glass window.
A woman sat inside.
Dark hair.
Gray sweater.
Hands folded calmly on the table.
My wife.
She looked up.
Our eyes met.
She stood immediately.
“Nathan.”
I couldn’t move.
Same face.
Same voice.
Same wedding ring.
“Rebecca?”
She rushed toward the glass.
“Oh, thank God.”
Mercer opened the door but kept his hand near his holster.
Rebecca stepped toward me.
I stepped backward.
Pain crossed her face.
“Nathan?”
“Don’t.”
She stopped.
“What’s happening?”
I held up my phone.
“Explain this.”
She looked at the photograph.
Her face drained of color.
“That’s not me.”
“You’re sitting on our couch.”
“No.”
“It’s your face.”
“It isn’t me.”
“Then who is it?”
Rebecca stared at the image.
Then whispered:
“Claire.”
Mercer and I looked at each other.
“You said Claire was your sister,” I said.
Rebecca’s eyes widened.
“I never said that.”
I felt dizzy.
“Yes, you did.”
“When?”
“On the phone less than an hour ago.”
Rebecca shook her head slowly.
“Nathan, I haven’t spoken to you since this morning.”
I pulled up my call history.
There it was.
Rebecca.
Forty-seven minutes ago.
Six-minute call.
I showed her.
She reached into her purse and handed me her phone.
Her call history showed nothing.
Mercer said, “Calls can be spoofed.”
Rebecca looked at him.
Then something changed in her expression.
Recognition.
“You.”
Mercer stiffened.
“You know me?”
Rebecca backed away.
“You were there.”
“Where?”
“The hospital.”
Mercer’s face went pale.
“What hospital?”
Rebecca touched her temple.
“I don’t know.”
Her breathing became shallow.
“I remember your face.”
Mercer stepped toward her.
“Rebecca, what year?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Try.”
“I said I don’t know!”
She suddenly screamed it.
Then she covered her mouth, horrified by her own reaction.
I moved toward her instinctively.
“Nathan,” she whispered.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“There are things I never told you.”
“What things?”
“I don’t remember my childhood.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“Not pieces of it. Almost all of it.”
“Why did you tell me stories about your parents?”
“Because those were the stories I was given.”
“Given by who?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Mercer looked stunned.
Rebecca continued.
“My first clear memory is waking up in a hospital when I was twenty-two.”
My chest tightened.
“What year?”
“2011.”
The same year.
Always the same year.
“You never told me that.”
“I was ashamed.”
“Ashamed of what?”
“Not knowing who I was.”
She wiped her eyes.
“They told me my name was Rebecca. They gave me documents. Photographs. An entire life.”
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“You married me without knowing who you were?”
“I thought the memories would return.”
“Did they?”
“Some.”
“What do you remember?”
Rebecca looked directly at Mercer.
“A room with no windows.”
Mercer went completely still.
“A man asking me questions.”
“What questions?”
“Who I was.”
She swallowed.
“Every time I answered wrong, he started over.”
I felt my skin crawl.
“Who was the man?”
“I never remembered his face.”
She looked at Mercer again.
“But I remember you standing outside the door.”
Mercer whispered, “No.”
Rebecca’s eyes narrowed.
“Yes.”
“No, Rebecca.”
“You were there.”
“I never worked at that facility.”
“You were there!”
Mercer stepped backward.
Then Rebecca noticed something.
His left wrist.
A thin scar.
Her face changed.
“You had that scar.”
Mercer covered it instinctively.
I saw the fear in his eyes.
“You remember me?” he whispered.
Rebecca nodded.
And suddenly Mercer looked like a man whose past had finally caught him.
Before anyone could speak, every light in the station went out.
Darkness swallowed the hallway.
Someone shouted.
An alarm began screaming.
Mercer grabbed me.
“Stay down!”
A gunshot exploded somewhere downstairs.
Then another.
Rebecca screamed.
Emergency lights flickered red.
Footsteps thundered through the corridor.
Someone was coming toward us.
Fast.
Mercer raised his weapon.
The footsteps stopped.
Silence.
Then a voice came from the darkness.
“Nathan.”
Rebecca grabbed my arm.
“That’s her.”
The woman stepped into the red emergency light.
My heart nearly stopped.
She looked exactly like Rebecca.
But there was blood on her sleeve.
And she was holding my father’s black lockbox.
“Rachel?” I whispered.
The woman smiled sadly.
“No.”
Behind me, Rebecca began trembling.
Mercer raised his gun.
“Don’t move.”
The woman ignored him.
She looked only at me.
“You’ve spent all day asking the wrong question.”
“What question should I be asking?”
She placed the lockbox on the floor.
Then she reached into her pocket.
And pulled out a key.
“Not who your wife is.”
She slid the key toward me.
“Ask why your father chose her for you.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
Rebecca stared at me.
“Nathan, I don’t understand.”
Neither did I.
The woman looked at Rebecca.
Then at me.
“Your marriage wasn’t an accident.”
I felt as if someone had punched me in the chest.
“I met Rebecca at a bookstore.”
“I know.”
“How could you know that?”
“Because your father arranged it.”
“No.”
“He arranged the bookstore.”
“No.”
“He arranged her job.”
“Stop.”
“He arranged the apartment she lived in.”
“Stop!”
“And three months before you met her, he received a photograph of you from Dr. Holloway.”
The hallway seemed to tilt.
Rebecca whispered:
“Why?”
The woman’s eyes filled with tears.
“Because Nathan was the final part of the experiment.”
Mercer fired.
The gunshot deafened me.
The woman dropped behind the corner.
Rebecca screamed.
I tackled Mercer before he could fire again.
His gun slid across the floor.
“Why did you shoot?”
“She’s lying!”
Mercer shoved me away.
“She’s trying to turn you against everyone!”
“Then tell me what’s in the box!”
Mercer froze.
That was enough.
He knew.
I grabbed the key.
Rebecca grabbed the lockbox.
We ran into the nearest office and slammed the door.
Mercer pounded from the other side.
“Nathan! Don’t open it!”
I locked the door.
Rebecca placed the box on the desk.
My hands shook as I pushed the key into the lock.
It turned.
Click.
Inside were dozens of envelopes.
Photographs.
Medical records.
Cassette tapes.
And a thick folder bearing my name.
NATHAN BROOKS.
I opened it.
The first page was dated sixteen years ago.
One year before Claire disappeared.
At the top were two names.
DR. SAMUEL HOLLOWAY.
HENRY BROOKS.
My father.
Below them was a title:
PROJECT SECOND LIFE — SUBJECT PAIRING PROTOCOL.
Rebecca leaned over my shoulder.
“What does that mean?”
I turned the page.
There were photographs of me.
Leaving college.
Buying groceries.
Walking into my first apartment.
Photographs taken before I ever met Rebecca.
Someone had been watching me.
Then I found photographs of her.
Except the captions didn’t say Rebecca.
SUBJECT 7.
My hands went numb.
Rebecca covered her mouth.
“No.”
The next page contained a handwritten note from my father.
Subject 7 continues to demonstrate stable identity reconstruction. Emotional attachment to Nathan may provide the permanent anchor Holloway requires.
Rebecca began crying.
“I was an experiment.”
I couldn’t answer.
Because underneath that note was something worse.
A photograph of three identical young women.
Claire.
Rachel.
And a third woman.
Rebecca.
Three.
Not two.
On the back, my father had written:
Only one of them was born a Holloway.
I stared at the sentence until the words blurred.
Rebecca whispered:
“Then what are we?”
A pounding came from outside.
“Nathan!” Mercer shouted.
“Do not believe what you’re reading!”
I turned over another page.
A birth certificate fell onto the desk.
CLAIRE ELIZABETH HOLLOWAY.
Then another.
RACHEL ELIZABETH HOLLOWAY.
Then a third.
REBECCA ANNE VALE.
Same birth date.
Same hospital.
Different parents.
Rebecca touched the third certificate.
“Vale.”
Her voice shook.
“I know that name.”
“From where?”
“I don’t know.”
Then she suddenly grabbed her head.
A memory hit her so hard she nearly collapsed.
I caught her.
“What is it?”
She stared at me in horror.
“My mother.”
“What?”
“I remember my mother.”
“What did she look like?”
Rebecca’s lips trembled.
“She looked exactly like your mother.”
I stopped breathing.
“What did you say?”
Before she could answer, my phone rang.
Mom.
My mother, Margaret Ellis.
The woman Rebecca had supposedly stayed with the night before.
I answered slowly.
“Mom?”
There was silence.
Then my mother said:
“Nathan, I need you to listen very carefully.”
My entire body went cold.
“Where are you?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“Is Rebecca with you?”
“No.”
“Mom, do you know Dr. Samuel Holloway?”
Silence.
That silence answered me.
“You do.”
“Nathan—”
“Who is Rebecca?”
My mother began crying.
“Please don’t ask me that over the phone.”
“Who is she?”
“I wanted to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“I wanted to tell you before your father died.”
Rebecca stood beside me, staring at the phone.
“Mom.”
My voice broke.
“Rebecca just remembered a woman she thinks was her mother.”
Margaret stopped breathing.
“She says that woman looked exactly like you.”
For several seconds, nothing came through the phone.
Then my mother whispered:
“Oh, Henry… what did you do?”
“Mom?”
“Nathan, open the bottom of the lockbox.”
I looked down.
There was a false panel beneath the documents.
I lifted it.
One envelope remained.
On the front, in my father’s handwriting, were the words:
FOR NATHAN — ONLY IF THEY FIND HIM.
My hands shook as I opened it.
Inside was one photograph.
My father.
My mother.
Dr. Holloway.
And three little girls who appeared to be about six years old.
Claire.
Rachel.
Rebecca.
All three were holding identical dolls.
But there was a fourth child in the photograph.
A boy.
Standing beside my father.
I stared at him.
He had my eyes.
My nose.
My face.
But the photograph had been taken years before I was born.
On the back, my father had written one sentence:
Nathan must never learn he was not the first Nathan.
I couldn’t breathe.
Rebecca whispered:
“What does that mean?”
Then the woman outside the office began laughing.
Not loudly.
Almost sadly.
And through the locked door she said:
“Now you’re finally asking the right question.”
I stared at the photograph of the little boy with my face.
And for the first time in my life, I wondered whether Nathan Brooks was even my real name……………..
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