I called Felix from the library.
He answered immediately.
“Nora?”
“Who is Katherine Vale?”
Silence.
Nothing in the past week had prepared me for how much could be contained in one absence of sound.
“Where did you hear that name?”
“My grandmother.”
Another silence.
Then:
“I’ll come to you.”
“No.”
“Nora.”
“Answer.”
He exhaled slowly.
“She was my wife.”
The fact still felt impossible even after Anna had said it.
“How long?”
“Five months legally. Six if you count the separation.”
“You told me you had never been married.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the marriage was annulled.”
“That does not erase history.”
“No.”
“Why was it annulled?”
Felix said nothing.
“Because she discovered the trust?”
“Yes.”
“Did she know she was a candidate?”
“Not before we married.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“You did this before me.”
“No.”
“Don’t.”
“I mean the circumstances were different.”
“You married a woman without telling her the trust required it.”
“Yes.”
“That is the same.”
“Yes.”
Caroline sat across the room with her arms folded.
Anna looked at the floor.
“What happened to Katherine?”
Felix’s voice changed.
“I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.”
“It’s true.”
“She disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After the annulment.”
“Did you report her missing?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“She left a note.”
“What did it say?”
“That she wanted no contact.”
“Do you still have it?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“My father.”
Of course.
“Did you see Katherine write it?”
“No.”
“Did you speak to her after the annulment?”
“One time.”
“When?”
“About three weeks later.”
“What happened?”
“She said I had ruined her life.”
“Accurate.”
He accepted it.
“She said she had copies of trust documents.”
“What did you do?”
“I told my father.”
My stomach dropped.
“You told Harold.”
“Yes.”
“And then she disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“How long after?”
“Two days.”
I closed my eyes.
“Felix.”
“I was twenty-seven.”
“I do not care how old you were.”
“I know.”
“No. Stop saying that.”
He fell silent.
“Did you think your father harmed her?”
“I asked.”
“What did he say?”
“That she took money and left.”
“Did you believe him?”
“At the time.”
“And later?”
“No.”
“When did you stop believing?”
“After Grandmother disappeared.”
Eight years ago.
“You have spent eight years suspecting your family might have erased your first wife.”
His voice broke.
“Yes.”
“And you still stayed.”
“Yes.”
“And you still kept me ignorant.”
“Yes.”
“And still had an affair.”
“Yes.”
The starkness of the answers hurt more than excuses.
I sat down.
“Come to the library.”
He exhaled.
“I’ll be there.”
He arrived forty minutes later.
No coat.
Hair damp from rain.
He stopped when he saw Anna.
His face changed.
“You’re alive.”
Anna’s expression was cold.
“So are you.”
Caroline muttered, “Apparently everyone is.”
Felix looked at me.
“Katherine?”
I slid my grandmother’s note across the table.
He read the line.
His face crumpled.
“Evelyn knew.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“That is becoming the least interesting question.”
I took out the candidate folder.
“Tell me everything.”
Felix sat.
“Katherine worked for the foundation.”
“What role?”
“Grants.”
“Did Ingrid choose her?”
“Yes.”
“Did you love her?”
He hesitated.
“Not at first.”
There it was.
“And later?”
“I cared about her.”
“Not enough.”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“My parents told me I needed a qualifying marriage before thirty.”
“You complied.”
“Yes.”
“Did Katherine know about the inheritance?”
“She knew I came from money.”
“Not the condition.”
“No.”
“Did she want children?”
“Yes.”
“Was she medically screened?”
“Yes.”
“Without consent?”
Felix looked down.
“Yes.”
Anna spoke.
“Katherine’s file was the first one I ever reviewed.”
Felix looked at her.
“You?”
“Yes.”
“You were involved?”
“Yes.”
He laughed softly.
“So everyone gets a turn.”
Anna flinched.
I said, “Continue.”
Felix did.
“We married quickly.”
“How quickly?”
“Seven months after meeting.”
“And when did she discover the trust?”
“Four months into the marriage.”
“How?”
“She found a letter from Martin.”
“What letter?”
“Scheduling genetic screening.”
“For her?”
“Yes.”
“She confronted you.”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell the truth?”
“Partly.”
I stared.
“Partly.”
“I told her about the trust condition.”
“Not the surveillance.”
“No.”
“Not the medical records.”
“No.”
“Not that you selected her.”
“No.”
“What did she do?”
“Left.”
“Immediately?”
“Yes.”
“Then annulment.”
“She demanded it.”
“Did the trust release you?”
“Because no child existed, yes.”
“And the family needed another candidate.”
“Eventually.”
“Me.”
“Yes.”
I sat back.
Katherine had been the rehearsal.
I had been the replacement.
Perhaps that was why Felix had seemed so practiced at secrecy.
He had already watched one woman learn the truth and leave.
“Why did you marry again?”
“My father said the company needed the distribution.”
“Same story.”
“Yes.”
“You knew exactly what would happen if I discovered it.”
“Yes.”
“And you married me anyway.”
“Yes.”
No defense.
Nothing left.
“Why did you not tell me about Katherine?”
“Because if I told you I had lied to one wife for the trust, you would have asked what I was lying to you about.”
At least that answer was completely honest.
Caroline looked disgusted.
Anna looked sad.
I felt almost nothing.
Maybe there were limits to shock.
“Where was Katherine last seen?”
Felix frowned.
“Train station.”
“Leaving?”
“Supposedly.”
“Destination?”
“Boston.”
“Anyone see her board?”
“I don’t know.”
“Money taken?”
“My father said two hundred thousand.”
“From whom?”
“The family.”
“Was it documented?”
“I never checked.”
“Why?”
He looked at me.
“Because believing she took money was easier.”
That sentence mattered.
Not because it excused anything.
Because it described the engine behind almost every lie here.
The convenient explanation wins when the truth costs too much.
I looked at Anna.
“Did you investigate Katherine?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After my disappearance.”
“What did you find?”
“She never used the money.”
Felix went still.
“What?”
“No bank activity.”
“No passport?”
“Not after that week.”
“No employment?”
“No.”
“Death?”
“No verified record.”
“Then where is she?”
Anna looked at Caroline.
Caroline opened her laptop.
“I ran the name years ago.”
“Why?”
“Because Anna had left references to her in copied files.”
“And?”
“There is one later record.”
“What?”
“A woman matching Katherine’s date of birth entered a protected identity program.”
Felix stared.
“Witness protection?”
“Not federal.”
“Then?”
“Domestic violence identity protection.”
My skin prickled.
Against whom?
Felix whispered, “Me?”
Caroline looked at him.
“The file doesn’t say.”
He closed his eyes.
I watched him understand what his silence might have looked like from Katherine’s side.
A wealthy husband.
Powerful family.
Surveillance.
Medical records.
Trust lawyers.
A father-in-law claiming she took money.
If Katherine feared them, disappearing under protection might have been the rational choice.
“Is she alive?” I asked.
Caroline searched.
“One linked record was updated two years ago.”
Felix opened his eyes.
Alive.
Possibly.
He looked almost relieved.
Then ashamed of the relief.
“Can we contact her?”
“Protected identity means not directly.”
“Can authorities?”
“Possibly.”
“We need her testimony.”
Felix looked at me.
“No.”
I turned.
“What?”
“If she escaped us, she doesn’t owe us a return.”
The answer surprised me.
He continued.
“If prosecutors need her, they can use proper channels.”
I studied him.
“You’re finally learning.”
His expression tightened.
“Too late.”
“Yes.”
No comfort.
Not yet.
My phone buzzed.
Anonymous number.
Anna raised both hands.
Caroline did too.
Not them.
The message read:
KATHERINE DID NOT TAKE MONEY.
A second followed.
HAROLD PAID MARTIN TO MAKE HER DISAPPEAR.
Felix went pale.
Then:
SHE WAS NEVER THE TARGET.
YOU WERE.
He stared.
“What does that mean?”
Another message arrived.
ASK FELIX WHAT KATHERINE FOUND IN HIS MEDICAL FILE.
I looked at him.
His face showed genuine confusion.
“I don’t know.”
“Did she ever mention your medical file?”
He thought.
Then went still.
“What?”
“The night she left.”
“What did she say?”
Felix’s eyes were distant.
“She said, ‘You don’t even know what they did to you.’”
My pulse quickened.
“What did you think she meant?”
“The trust.”
“Maybe not.”
Anna closed her eyes.
I noticed.
“You know.”
She did not answer.
“Anna.”
Her face was pale.
“The fertility program wasn’t only using women.”
Felix stared.
“What?”
Anna looked at him.
“Your childhood medical history was altered.”
His expression changed.
“How?”
“You were sterilized.”
Silence.
The word felt too large for the room.
Felix laughed once.
“No.”
Anna continued.
“Not permanently.”
“What are you talking about?”
“A procedure when you were seventeen.”
“I never had—”
“You had surgery after a sports injury.”
His face went white.
I remembered the scar.
Lower abdomen.
He once said it was from a hernia repair.
Anna said, “It wasn’t only a hernia.”
Felix stopped breathing.
“What did they do?”
“Placed a temporary vasal occlusion.”
Caroline whispered, “Jesus.”
I stared at Anna.
“Why?”
“To control when he could produce a child.”
The trust again.
Bloodline management.
Felix sat down.
“No.”
“They reversed it later.”
“When?”
“Before Katherine.”
“Then why would she care?”
Anna looked at him.
“Because the reversal used stored reproductive material as part of the testing process.”
His face changed.
“What material?”
“Samples collected from you before you were legally able to consent independently.”
He closed his eyes.
Daniel.
Evan.
Lily.
The same pattern.
Felix’s body had been entered into the system before he had ever entered mine.
That did not erase his choices.
But it changed where his captivity began.
“What did Katherine discover?”
Anna answered.
“That Martin had retained enough of your genetic material to create children without you.”
Felix looked at me.
We both thought of Evan.
Lily.
But those came later.
I asked, “Were there others?”
Anna said nothing.
My stomach dropped.
“How many?”
She whispered, “At least one before Katherine.”
Felix stared.
“A child?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Boy or girl?”
Anna looked toward the archive box.
“Girl.”
Felix’s voice barely worked.
“How old?”
“Fourteen.”
The room went still.
A fourteen-year-old daughter.
Created years before our marriage.
Before Katherine.
Before me.
Before Felix knew any of this.
My phone buzzed.
One final message.
HER NAME IS SOPHIE.
Then:
AND SHE HAS BEEN LIVING WITH THE PERSON WHO STARTED THIS WHOLE PLAN.
Click here to continue reading: PART 28: Sophie’s Existence Led Us Back to the One Person Everyone Had Trusted, and I Finally Understood Who Had Been Controlling the Story From the Beginning
At His Family’s Dinner Table, My Husband Said One German Sentence He Never Expected Me to Understand
Part 27 of 35
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