Chapter 4 - JULIA’S SECOND LIFE
Sarah Vale refused to speak over the phone.
She named a crowded café forty minutes away.
Alexander went with two private security officers.
Sarah arrived wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap.
She was approximately Julia’s age.
Mid-forties.
She sat opposite Alexander and immediately placed a phone inside a signal-blocking pouch.
“You shouldn’t have brought company.”
“They’re mine.”
“That doesn’t mean they’re yours.”
Alexander studied her.
“What did Julia tell you?”
Sarah looked exhausted.
“That depends on what you know.”
“I know someone forged Rebecca’s identity, drugged my son, entered my house, and searched for something Julia hid.”
Sarah’s face changed.
“They’re looking for the ledger.”
“What ledger?”
She hesitated.
Julia had discovered something at Cole Dynamics before Henry was born.
A hidden financial system buried inside vendor payments.
At first she believed it was corporate fraud.
Then she found connections to private medical research.
Children’s hospitals.
Behavioral clinics.
Data brokers.
A company called Northstar Therapeutics.
Alexander recognized the name.
Cole Dynamics had once invested in Northstar.
The partnership ended after regulatory problems.
“What did Julia find?”
Sarah leaned closer.
“Northstar was collecting neurological data from children without proper consent.”
Alexander’s expression hardened.
“That would have destroyed them.”
“It would have destroyed more than Northstar.”
Some Cole executives had funded the research.
Not Alexander, Sarah insisted.
Julia believed he had been deliberately kept outside the project because he would shut it down.
She began gathering proof.
Then Henry was born.
Julia withdrew suddenly from work.
Alexander remembered.
She claimed she wanted to focus on motherhood.
Sarah gave another explanation.
“Someone threatened Henry.”
Alexander’s throat tightened.
Julia had hidden copies of records somewhere even Sarah never learned.
The unknown man visiting Henry may have been searching for access.
“But why drug him?”
“Memory suppression.”
Sarah believed the research program experimented with ways to weaken recent memory without causing obvious illness.
Alexander thought of the laboratory results.
His son had been given an experimental compound.
For months.
Maybe longer.
Sarah pulled out a folder.
Inside were photographs of Northstar researchers.
One face stopped Alexander.
Rebecca.
Younger.
Different hair.
Different name.
Dr. Rebecca Stanton.
She was not a nanny.
She was a behavioral pharmacologist.
Alexander stared at the credential.
“She had medical training.”
“Extensive training.”
Another photograph showed Dr. Reeves at a conference beside her.
They knew each other.
Alexander felt betrayal settle deeper.
“Reeves helped her.”
Sarah shook her head.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Julia trusted Malcolm Reeves.”
Alexander laughed bitterly.
“Julia trusted a lot of people who turned out to be liars.”
Sarah’s eyes sharpened.
“She trusted you.”
Alexander stopped.
Sarah continued.
“Until the last six months.”
That hurt unexpectedly.
“Why?”
“Because she thought someone inside Cole Dynamics was using your authorization signature.”
Alexander frowned.
Digital signatures were tightly controlled.
But as founder and CEO, his credentials could approve huge transfers.
Julia discovered projects apparently authorized by Alexander.
He had never seen them.
“She thought your identity was being used to shield the program.”
Alexander thought of Rebecca’s forged résumé.
A fake identity convincing enough to enter his home.
The same people could forge approvals.
His phone vibrated.
One of his security officers had received an alert.
Someone had entered Sarah’s apartment.
They checked the live building feed.
A man in a gray coat stepped into the elevator.
Silver watch.
The same visitor from Alexander’s house.
Sarah went pale.
“They found me.”
Alexander looked at the screen.
The man lifted his head just long enough for the camera to capture his face.
Alexander recognized him.
Not Reeves.
Not a stranger.
Nathan Cole.
May you like
Alexander’s younger brother.
A man who had supposedly died nine years earlier.
