Chapter 14 - The Hidden Key
Elena spread the paper across the table.
"Russell thought the archive needed Grace's blood sample to decrypt."
Elias frowned.
"But?"
"My mother hid the key."
Mateo blinked.
"Mom, you're our mother."
Elena looked exhausted.
"I mean your grandmother. My mom."
"She knew?"
Elena nodded.
"She suspected Lazarus was being redirected before I did."
Elias closed his eyes.
Another woman he had loved had tried to warn him.
Another warning buried under board meetings.
Mara said quietly, "You have a type."
He gave her a look.
"Not helpful."
"It was a little helpful."
Elena decoded the pattern.
It opened a cloud mirror of the master archive.
Russell had never possessed the only copy.
Catherine and Elena had built a dead-man system years earlier.
The files began downloading.
Buyer lists.
Payment records.
Videos.
Medical data.
And a folder labeled VANCE, ELIAS.
He froze.
"Why am I in it?"
Elena opened the file.
Six years earlier, after Elias's spinal injury, Russell had proposed using him as Lazarus Subject Zero.
Elias had refused experimental gene therapy.
But his post-surgical tissue samples had been stored.
Russell used them anyway.
Grace's regenerative line had partly been developed from Elias's own cells.
Mateo stared.
"So Grandpa is part of Grace?"
Elena rubbed her forehead.
"Biologically, in a research sense, yes."
Elias felt nauseated.
His own cells.
His daughter's work.
His granddaughter's body.
Then Mara opened another file.
A payment ledger.
Frank's name appeared.
So did Samuel Kerr's.
Mateo backed away.
"No."
Elias read the entry.
SAMUEL KERR - CONTINUITY CONSULTANT.
Monthly payments for five years.
Elena looked stunned.
"He helped us."
Ruby said, "Or he watched us."
They called the church.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Tomas's medical tracker pinged.
Moving.
Fast.
Samuel had taken him.
Mateo grabbed his coat.
"I'm going."
Elena blocked him.
"No."
"That's my brother!"
Elias stood with the walker.
Everyone stopped.
He had never crossed the room without a chair.
He took one step.
Then another.
Pain ripped through his back.
But he stayed upright.
"Nobody goes alone."
Mara stared.
"You're walking."
Elias looked at his feet.
"Apparently."
His phone rang.
Samuel.
Elias answered.
Samuel sounded terrified.
"They made me do it."
"Where is Tomas?"
"Alive."
"Who made you?"
A woman's voice came on the line.
Celeste Rowan.
"Midnight moved up."
Behind her, Tomas screamed.
"Grandpa!"
Celeste said, "Bring the decryption key to Pier Nine in one hour."
May you like
Then she added softly:
"Or your grandson becomes the next Lazarus trial."
