CHAPTER 7 — THE GRAVE THAT HELD NO BODY
I did not go alone.
I only made them believe I did.
Nathaniel was taken into surgery with a bullet lodged near his shoulder blade. The doctors said he would survive, but the message on my phone included photographs of his medical chart, his operating room number, and the names of the surgeons.
Whoever threatened him had access inside the hospital.
Marcus wanted to lock down the entire building.
Agent Mercer wanted to use the message to draw out the sender.
I wanted answers.
My mother had been buried in Cedar Falls Cemetery beneath a simple stone I had visited every year since childhood.
ELEANOR HAYES.
BELOVED MOTHER.
1978–2003.
Just before midnight, a black sedan left Cross House.
I sat visibly in the rear seat.
At least, that was what the watcher believed.
The woman in the car was a federal agent wearing my coat and a dark wig.
I traveled separately with Marcus inside an unmarked utility van.
We reached Cedar Falls shortly before 2:00 a.m.
Snow covered the cemetery.
Bare trees swayed beneath a colorless sky. The moon disappeared behind low clouds.
My mother’s headstone stood near the far wall.
Someone was waiting beside it.
An elderly man in a long black coat.
He leaned on no cane.
Despite his age, he stood perfectly straight.
My grandfather.
Alexander Cross.
The man declared dead twenty-five years earlier.
He looked exactly like the recording, only older and thinner.
I wore a wire beneath my sweater.
Marcus and Mercer watched from beyond the cemetery wall.
I approached alone.
Alexander smiled.
“Grace.”
His voice carried no warmth.
“You look like Eleanor.”
“You killed her.”
“No.”
“You said her death was a consequence.”
“She made choices.”
“So did you.”
His eyes lowered toward my belly.
“And yet my work survived.”
I stopped several feet away.
“My daughter is not your work.”
“Your daughter is the future.”
“She is a child.”
“She is the first stable carrier of a corrected resistance genome.”
I wanted to strike him.
Instead, I forced myself to remain calm.
“Why use Nathaniel?”
“His cells possessed the strongest secondary markers.”
“You created a child from an uncle and niece.”
“Primitive moral disgust has delayed medical progress for centuries.”
“She could have genetic abnormalities.”
“Every harmful sequence was corrected.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know everything about her.”
His certainty chilled me.
“How?”
“We have monitored every scan.”
“Through Jonathan?”
“Jonathan was a useful animal.”
“Was?”
Alexander smiled faintly.
“He survived the laboratory collapse.”
My breath caught.
“Where is he?”
“Recovering.”
“You saved him.”
“He still has one purpose.”
“What purpose?”
“To die publicly.”
I stared at him.
Alexander looked toward my mother’s grave.
“Jonathan will confess to the entire program. He will claim he designed it, financed it, and acted alone.”
“No one will believe that.”
“People believe what institutions repeat.”
“And Nathaniel?”
“He will resign from Cross Meridian.”
“Why?”
“Because his company will be accused of illegal experimentation.”
The entire scandal had been constructed to destroy Nathaniel while allowing Alexander to regain control through hidden allies.
“You want the company.”
“I built the company.”
“You abandoned it.”
“I allowed Nathaniel to maintain it.”
“He spent his life trying to find your daughter.”
“My daughter betrayed her blood.”
“She was afraid of you.”
“She lacked vision.”
The contempt in his voice erased the last trace of humanity I might have imagined in him.
I looked at the grave.
“Why did you call me here?”
“To offer you a choice.”
He removed a document from his coat.
“Sign control of Eleanor’s trust to my foundation. In exchange, Nathaniel survives the night, all charges against you disappear, and your daughter receives the finest life money can provide.”
“A life with you?”
“A life of purpose.”
“No.”
“You have not read the terms.”
“I don’t need to.”
Alexander’s expression did not change.
“Your mother said the same thing.”
My hands curled into fists.
“What happened the night she died?”
He looked at the grave.
“Eleanor planned to deliver Project Genesis files to a federal prosecutor. Gabriel Vale attempted to stop her.”
“I thought Gabriel died before I was born.”
“He did.”
“Then who tried to stop her?”
Alexander’s eyes met mine.
“Gabriel’s younger brother.”
Vanessa’s father.
“Victor Vale?”
Alexander smiled.
“You have learned more than I expected.”
Victor Vale had never appeared in any file.
“He was driving the other car,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Did he survive?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
“Closer than you think.”
A shadow moved beyond the trees.
I heard a faint click through my earpiece.
Marcus warning me.
Someone else had entered the cemetery.
Alexander continued.
“Victor raised Vanessa. He trained Jonathan. He directed the fertility program.”
“Then why did Vanessa betray them?”
“She developed a conscience.”
“What did Victor do to her?”
Alexander showed no emotion.
“What weak men always do to disobedient daughters.”
Anger burned through me.
“Where is Victor?”
A voice answered behind me.
“Here.”
Agent Mercer stepped from the trees.
Except it was not Agent Mercer.
The man wore Mercer’s coat.
He held a gun against Marcus’s back.
Marcus’s hands were raised.
A second man dragged the real Mercer forward, blood running from a wound near his temple.
Victor Vale resembled his dead brother, Gabriel. He had the same dark hair, though streaked with gray, and the same pale eyes.
He smiled at me.
“My brother should have stayed away from Eleanor.”
“Gabriel loved her.”
“Gabriel wanted to expose the project.”
“Alexander killed him.”
Victor glanced toward Alexander.
“Our arrangement required sacrifices.”
It became clear then.
Victor did not serve Alexander out of loyalty.
They were partners.
One controlled the science.
The other controlled the money.
Alexander held out the transfer documents again.
“Sign.”
“No.”
Victor pressed the gun harder against Marcus.
“Sign, or he dies.”
Marcus looked at me.
“Don’t.”
Victor struck him across the head.
I moved forward.
“Stop.”
Alexander handed me a pen.
The contract transferred my inheritance, medical authority, parental rights, and guardianship of my unborn child to the Cross Genesis Foundation.
“This isn’t about the company,” I whispered.
“It never was,” Alexander said. “The company merely funds the future.”
I placed the contract on the headstone.
Then I signed.
Grace Eleanor Blackwell.
Alexander smiled.
Victor lowered the gun slightly.
I looked at him.
“Now let them go.”
“No,” he said.
Alexander’s smile faded.
“Victor.”
“The contract only works if she lives long enough to deliver.”
He aimed the weapon at Marcus again.
“But the witnesses are unnecessary.”
A gunshot exploded across the cemetery.
Victor screamed.
The weapon flew from his hand.
Nathaniel stood near the stone wall wearing a hospital gown beneath a winter coat, one arm secured in a sling.
A pistol remained steady in his good hand.
His face was pale.
“You should have made sure I stayed unconscious,” he said.
Federal agents emerged from every direction.
Alexander turned to run.
I grabbed the contract from the grave and tore it in half.
Victor tackled me.
We fell into the snow.
A sharp pain ripped across my abdomen.
My baby monitor—attached beneath my coat—began sounding an alarm.
Marcus dragged Victor away.
Agents restrained Alexander.
Nathaniel dropped beside me.
“Grace?”
Warm liquid spread beneath me.
My water had broken.
The contractions began immediately.
Too strong.
Too close together.
Nathaniel looked at the blood staining the snow.
“Call an ambulance!”
Dr. Hart’s voice came through the earpiece.
“She’s thirty-four weeks. Keep her still.”
I gripped Nathaniel’s hand.
“The baby.”
“She will be safe.”
“You don’t know that.”
His eyes held mine.
“No. But I know you are not facing this alone.”
As paramedics rushed through the cemetery, federal agents placed Alexander Cross in handcuffs beside the grave of the daughter he destroyed.
He watched me being lifted onto a stretcher.
Then he smiled.
“You still don’t understand,” he called out.
Nathaniel turned toward him.
Alexander’s smile widened.
“The baby’s birth activates the trust.”
Every agent fell silent.
He looked directly at me.
“And the trust contains a final instruction Eleanor never knew about.”
“What instruction?” Nathaniel demanded.
May you like
Alexander laughed.
“When the forty-seventh child takes her first breath, Cross Meridian belongs to me again.”
