Chapter 6 - The Aunt Who Died Twice
Rebecca Rollins had been the glamorous aunt Sabrina remembered only in
flashes: red lipstick, fast cars, and arguments behind closed doors.
Corporate records said Rebecca died abroad. Yet the ledger carried
recent authorizations bearing her name.
Naomi traced Rebecca’s estate and discovered something stranger: no
death certificate had ever been filed in Colorado. The company had
relied on foreign documentation.
Sabrina laughed without humor. “Of course.”
Justin said, “At this point, I want DNA tests at every funeral.”
They traced Rebecca to a property company in Santa Fe. Sabrina and
Justin flew there under assumed hotel reservations.
A woman opened the adobe house door.
She was seventy, silver-haired, and unmistakably a Rollins.
“Sabrina,” Rebecca said. “You have Elaine’s eyes.”
Sabrina’s knees weakened.
“You’re alive.”
“So is your mother.”
“Where is she?”
Rebecca stepped aside. “Come in before Vale learns you’re here.”
Rebecca claimed she had helped Elaine disappear after the crash. The
accident had been real, but Elaine survived. Vale’s father arranged a
false identification while Rebecca moved Elaine between safe houses.
“Why fake your own death too?” Justin asked.
“Because I stole the Northstar master ledger.”
Rebecca poured coffee with steady hands.
Sabrina showed her the recent authorization.
Rebecca studied it. “That is my signature.”
“You signed this last year.”
“Yes.”
Justin stood. “So you’re part of it.”
Rebecca did not flinch. “I authorized transfers to keep money moving
where Grant could see it.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does if you’re trying to map every account he controls.”
Rebecca had spent years infiltrating Northstar from the outside.
“Why not call federal investigators?”
“We did, once. The investigator was compromised.”
Sabrina thought of the auditor attacked in Denver.
Rebecca opened a locked cabinet and removed a drive.
“This is what Kenneth wanted when he married you.”
“What is it?”
“Proof the neonatal trial was manipulated.”
Sabrina stared.
Rebecca explained that the original treatment itself had saved lives.
The crime came later: long-term outcomes were altered to protect
investors. Children with complications disappeared from published data.
“Subject Seventeen was one of the missing records.”
“Me.”
“Yes.”
Kenneth, then a junior analyst, discovered the discrepancy. Elaine
believed he wanted justice.
“He wanted leverage,” Sabrina said.
Rebecca nodded.
Kenneth had spent years blackmailing Northstar insiders. When he
realized Sabrina was Subject Seventeen and heir to Rollins Global, he
created a longer plan.
“He married the evidence,” Rebecca said.
The phrase made Sabrina feel physically ill.
Back in Denver, Kenneth finally agreed to speak without Grant present.
“I did marry you because of Northstar,” he admitted.
Sabrina’s face went still.
“But I fell in love with you.”
“Don’t insult me.”
“It wasn’t supposed to become real.”
“You forged my medical consent.”
Kenneth looked away.
“Why?”
“Because you got pregnant.”
“That’s usually how families happen.”
“If you had another complication, doctors might have run genetic and
treatment-history screens. Northstar would have surfaced.”
“So you chose your secret over my body.”
“I chose your life.”
“You chose yourself.”
Kenneth’s eyes filled. “Grant told me if the trial resurfaced, he would
destroy you, your father, everyone.”
“And Maya?”
Kenneth said nothing.
Sabrina stood.
“Was she another assignment?”
“No.”
“Then you really are pathetic.”
As Sabrina reached the door, Kenneth said, “Maya was watching me.”
Sabrina turned.
“For her father?”
“For someone else.”
“Who?”
Kenneth swallowed.
“Your mother.”
Sabrina laughed once, disbelieving.
Kenneth insisted Elaine had contacted Maya months earlier and asked her
to get close enough to photograph Kenneth’s second phone.
“Why would Maya sleep with you?”
“She didn’t have to.”
“Yet she did.”
Kenneth’s expression hardened with shame.
Sabrina left and called Maya.
Maya answered after one ring.
“Did my mother recruit you?”
Silence.
“Maya.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Elaine made me promise.”
“What did you find?”
Maya began to cry.
“A message scheduling the destruction of the Northstar archive.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“Where?”
Maya gave an address.
Sabrina recognized it.
It was Rollins Global’s oldest data warehouse.
Then Maya added, “There’s something else. The message says Subject
Seventeen is to be transferred before the fire.”
Sabrina looked at her own reflection in the dark window.
“Transferred from where?”
Maya whispered, “That’s what scares me. I thought Subject Seventeen was
you.”
“So did I.”
“If the message is current,” Maya said, “then someone else is using your
identity.”
As the events surrounding the aunt who died twice unfolded, Sabrina kept
returning to one rule: nobody would make the next decision in her name.
The silence after each revelation had become familiar to Sabrina, but
familiarity did not make it easier. She had learned to distinguish shock
from fear: shock froze her, while fear tried to make decisions for her.
Now she refused to let either one speak first. She wrote down names,
dates, contradictions, and every question nobody wanted answered. That
habit had once made her an exceptional CFO. Now it was helping her
survive her own family.
As the events surrounding the aunt who died twice unfolded, Sabrina kept
returning to one rule: nobody would make the next decision in her name.
Justin had a different way of processing disaster. He paced, argued,
made coffee he forgot to drink, then returned to the same question from
a new angle. Their disagreements became sharper as the stakes rose, but
Sabrina trusted the fact that he challenged her. Too many people in her
life had called obedience love. Justin, even furious, still allowed her
to say no.
As the events surrounding the aunt who died twice unfolded, Sabrina kept
returning to one rule: nobody would make the next decision in her name.
Denver continued around them with insulting normality. Traffic crawled
along wet streets, restaurants filled for dinner, and strangers
complained about weather while Sabrina’s world kept rearranging itself.
She began to understand why secrets survived so easily. Catastrophe
rarely announced itself to everyone. Most of the time, it happened in
one room while the rest of the city ordered dessert.
As the events surrounding the aunt who died twice unfolded, Sabrina kept
returning to one rule: nobody would make the next decision in her name.
Naomi repeatedly reminded Sabrina to separate what she could prove from
what she believed. “Suspicion is a direction, not a destination,” she
said. Sabrina wrote the sentence in the margin of her notebook. She had
spent years accepting other people’s conclusions. Now she wanted
evidence, even when the evidence embarrassed her.
As the events surrounding the aunt who died twice unfolded, Sabrina kept
returning to one rule: nobody would make the next decision in her name.
There were moments when Sabrina wanted the simplicity of the first
betrayal back. An affair had rules she understood: vows broken, trust
destroyed, a marriage ending. What followed had no clean vocabulary.
Family loyalty mixed with corporate fraud, medical decisions with
May you like
inheritance, love with surveillance. Every answer contained another
person’s excuse, and every excuse contained a choice.
