Chapter 4 - The Woman in the Photograph
The door opened three inches.
Leon pushed me behind him.
A man stepped through.
He was younger than Leon by several years.
Same eyes.
Same jaw.
Different energy.
“Leon?”
Leon stared.
“Elliot.”
His brother looked genuinely startled.
“What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“You told me you were in London.”
“I was.”
Elliot held up his phone.
“My flight landed an hour ago.”
His gaze shifted to me.
“And who is this?”
“Abigail Reed.”
Elliot’s face changed.
Only for a fraction of a second.
But I saw it.
Recognition.
Leon saw it too.
“You know her?”
“No.”
“You reacted.”
“I reacted because you brought a stranger into Mom’s room.”
Leon held up the photograph.
“Do you know what this is?”
Elliot went pale.
That answered the question.
“Where did you get it?”
“Her safe.”
“You weren’t supposed to open that.”
Leon laughed without humor.
“It has my name on it.”
Elliot looked toward me.
“Leon, we should talk privately.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“She stays.”
Again.
That word.
Always me staying.
Elliot’s jaw tightened.
“Fine.”
He closed the door.
Then he sat.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Finally Elliot said, “Mom didn’t die in an accident.”
Leon’s face became still.
Not shocked.
Worse.
Prepared.
“Explain.”
“She was being followed.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not enough.”
“She was investigating something.”
“What?”
Elliot looked at the photograph in Leon’s hand.
“You.”
Silence.
“She believed your memory episodes weren’t psychological.”
Leon’s voice lowered.
“What did she think?”
“That someone was causing them.”
The room seemed to shrink.
I watched Leon.
His hands trembled once.
Then stopped.
“Drugging me?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“She suspected someone connected to Dad’s company.”
Leon stepped back.
“Our father?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop saying that.”
Elliot stood.
“I was fourteen.”
“So was I supposed to be protected by a fourteen-year-old?”
“No. You were supposed to be protected by adults.”
“Clearly that went well.”
The bitterness in his voice made Elliot flinch.
I stepped between them slightly.
“What happened after their mother died?”
Elliot looked at me.
“Leon’s episodes stopped.”
That chilled me.
“When?”
“Within months.”
Leon stared at his brother.
“You knew this?”
“I knew pieces.”
“For twenty years?”
“I was told never to tell you.”
“By whom?”
Elliot looked down.
“Dad.”
Leon’s father had died four years earlier.
Conveniently unavailable for questioning.
Leon turned away.
His breathing changed.
I recognized it.
Same as the elevator.
Too fast.
I touched his arm.
“Leon.”
He looked at me.
“You’re here.”
His shoulders lowered.
Elliot noticed.
Something passed through his expression.
Pain.
Maybe jealousy.
Maybe regret.
Then he asked, “Why is Abigail involved?”
Leon answered.
“Someone drugged me last night.”
Elliot went white.
“Again?”
Again.
The word hit harder than anything else.
Leon moved toward him.
“What do you mean again?”
Elliot realized his mistake.
“Six months ago.”
“You knew about Chicago?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Naomi called me.”
Leon’s expression sharpened.
“She called you?”
“She was scared.”
“What did she say?”
“That you’d lost time.”
Leon looked at me.
The message.
TRUST ABIGAIL. NOT NAOMI.
“Why didn’t she tell me you knew?”
“I don’t know.”
I asked, “When did you and Naomi break off your engagement?”
Elliot looked surprised.
“Eight years ago.”
“Why?”
“That’s personal.”
“Your brother was drugged. Someone fabricated a photo of me. Your former fiancée may be involved. We’re past personal.”
He almost smiled.
“You’re blunt.”
“I’m unemployed.”
That actually made him laugh.
Leon didn’t.
Elliot sobered.
“Naomi ended it after she discovered something in Cooper Global’s archives.”
“What?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
Leon’s voice hardened.
“You accepted that?”
“I was twenty-six and stupid.”
“You’re thirty-four now. What’s the excuse?”
“Leon.”
“No. You have spent years knowing our mother suspected someone inside our company was tampering with my memory.”
“I spent years trying to prove it.”
That stopped him.
Elliot walked to the old desk.
He opened a hidden drawer.
Inside were files.
Medical reports.
Names.
Dates.
Photographs.
He spread them across the desk.
Leon stared.
“What is this?”
“My investigation.”
One name appeared repeatedly.
Dr. Martin Vale.
I pointed.
“Vale.”
Leon looked.
“Marcus Vale.”
Elliot nodded.
“Brothers.”
The fake security guard.
The physician.
The connection was finally visible.
Martin Vale had worked for a private neurological research firm funded by Cooper Holdings in the early 2000s.
Research subject IDs filled the pages.
One code appeared over and over.
LC-17.
Leon Cooper.
Age seventeen.
Leon stared at it.
“They experimented on me.”
Elliot said nothing.
That was confirmation.
“What kind of experiment?”
“Memory suppression.”
My mouth went dry.
Elliot continued.
“The research was supposed to treat severe traumatic memory. But the early compounds produced disorientation, suggestibility, and temporary amnesia.”
Leon looked down at the page.
“And I was given it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“That’s the question Mom was trying to answer.”
I looked at Leon’s mother in the photograph.
“She found out.”
Elliot nodded.
“And then she died.”
Leon turned away.
Nobody spoke.
At last he whispered, “Who authorized the project?”
Elliot pulled out another page.
Most signatures were blacked out.
But one remained.
DAVID KELLER.
Leon’s board member.
The man at dinner.
The man who sent the fake guard.
Leon laughed once.
Cold.
“I’m going to destroy him.”
Elliot said, “You need proof.”
“I have proof.”
“You have twenty-year-old paperwork that can be explained away.”
“What about last night?”
“We don’t know that Keller administered anything.”
I remembered something.
“The champagne.”
Leon turned.
“What about it?”
“You said a woman handed it to you.”
“Yes.”
“Could it have been Naomi?”
He didn’t answer.
Elliot did.
“She was at the dinner.”
Leon’s phone buzzed.
A message from Naomi.
WE NEED TO TALK.
Then another.
DO NOT TRUST ELLIOT.
Leon showed us.
Elliot laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
I stared at the conflicting warnings.
Trust Abigail.
Not Naomi.
Do not trust Elliot.
Somebody was building a maze.
And Leon was standing in the center.
Naomi called.
Leon answered.
“Where are you?”
“Your mother’s house?”
His expression changed.
“How did you know?”
“Because Elliot has cameras.”
All of us looked toward the ceiling.
Elliot cursed.
“I disabled them.”
Naomi’s voice sharpened.
“No, you didn’t.”
Then came a noise downstairs.
Glass breaking.
Leon moved toward the door.
Naomi shouted through the phone.
“Leon, get out.”
“Why?”
“Because Marcus Vale isn’t the only man looking for those files.”
The lights went out.
Elliot whispered, “Back stairs.”
We moved.
Leon grabbed the files.
I followed.
A flashlight beam swept the hallway.
A man entered the house below.
Then another.
Leon pushed me toward the narrow service stairs.
We descended.
Halfway down, his phone lit.
Naomi had sent a photograph.
A woman standing beside Leon’s mother.
Young.
Dark-haired.
Familiar.
Underneath was one sentence.
ABIGAIL, ASK YOUR MOTHER WHY SHE WAS THERE.
I stopped.
My mother had died when I was twelve.
But the woman in the photograph was unmistakable.
May you like
It was her.
And she was holding Leon Cooper’s medical file.
