{"id":11188,"date":"2026-09-15T16:09:34","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T16:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/?p=11188"},"modified":"2026-09-15T16:09:34","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T16:09:34","slug":"part-13-at-the-house-where-their-mother-died-claire-found-proof-that-eve-had-been-protecting-the-family-from-inside-creston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/?p=11188","title":{"rendered":"PART 13 \u2013 At the House Where Their Mother Died, Claire Found Proof That Eve Had Been Protecting the Family From Inside Creston"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The safe house looked disappointingly ordinary.<\/p>\n<p>After everything Creston had hidden beneath hospitals and garages, I expected fences, cameras, concrete, something that announced the place had once been used for terrible work. Instead, the address led us to a narrow two-story house at the edge of an older neighborhood where sycamore roots had buckled the sidewalks.<\/p>\n<p>A porch swing moved slightly in the night breeze.<\/p>\n<p>One upstairs window was open.<\/p>\n<p>Morales stared at it from behind the windshield.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWas that open before?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thomas shook his head. \u201cI haven\u2019t been here in years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat wasn\u2019t my question.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Federal agents had already sealed both ends of the street. Sarah sat beside me in the rear of the SUV, rubbing the pale indentation where her wedding ring had been. She had removed it at the hospital and left it in a plastic evidence bag with Mark\u2019s belongings.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas occupied the front passenger seat.<\/p>\n<p>He had barely spoken since we left.<\/p>\n<p>I finally asked, \u201cWhich room?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He knew what I meant.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUpstairs. Rear bedroom.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere she died?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere they poisoned her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sarah closed her eyes.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas turned halfway around.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe didn\u2019t die here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know what I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Our mother had been made critically ill here and transported elsewhere so her death would look natural.<\/p>\n<p>The distinction mattered to investigators.<\/p>\n<p>To her daughters, less so.<\/p>\n<p>Morales ordered us to wait while the entry team cleared the building.<\/p>\n<p>Three minutes later her radio crackled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHouse clear.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then another voice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDetective, you need to see the kitchen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We entered under escort.<\/p>\n<p>The air smelled faintly of coffee.<\/p>\n<p>Fresh coffee.<\/p>\n<p>A mug sat on the kitchen table.<\/p>\n<p>Steam no longer rose from it, but when Thomas touched the ceramic with the back of one finger, it was still warm.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEve,\u201d he whispered.<\/p>\n<p>A second mug waited across from it.<\/p>\n<p>Empty.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah looked toward the staircase.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe expected us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On the table lay a child\u2019s wooden puzzle.<\/p>\n<p>Seven colored pieces.<\/p>\n<p>Blue.<\/p>\n<p>White.<\/p>\n<p>Green.<\/p>\n<p>Red.<\/p>\n<p>Black.<\/p>\n<p>Gold.<\/p>\n<p>White.<\/p>\n<p>The sequence from our mother\u2019s story.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas picked up the blue piece.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t,\u201d Morales said.<\/p>\n<p>He put it back.<\/p>\n<p>Federal technicians photographed everything.<\/p>\n<p>The puzzle had been arranged into the shape of a bird.<\/p>\n<p>Beneath the bird was a handwritten note.<\/p>\n<p>THE GARDEN OPENS AFTER RAIN.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah read it twice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat was in the story.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I remembered.<\/p>\n<p>After the sisters reached the locked garden, they waited beneath a tree until rain filled the stone channels around the gate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWater,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas looked toward the sink.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He walked to the window.<\/p>\n<p>Outside, gutters descended toward the ground.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe house.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We went to the basement.<\/p>\n<p>It smelled of damp concrete and old wood. Exposed pipes ran overhead. Shelves held empty paint cans, rusted tools, and boxes that had probably been placed deliberately to make the room look abandoned.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah noticed the floor drain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe rain went underground.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thomas crouched beside it.<\/p>\n<p>A narrow groove ran from the foundation wall toward the drain.<\/p>\n<p>Morales called technicians.<\/p>\n<p>They found a concealed pressure mechanism beneath the concrete.<\/p>\n<p>Water activated it.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas stared.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour mother designed this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow do you know?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe never trusted electronic locks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sarah gave a short laugh.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe didn\u2019t trust microwaves.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I remembered that too.<\/p>\n<p>Our mother had unplugged appliances during storms and kept cash inside flour containers.<\/p>\n<p>Some habits we had treated as eccentric suddenly looked like survival strategies.<\/p>\n<p>Technicians poured water into the exterior gutter.<\/p>\n<p>For several seconds nothing happened.<\/p>\n<p>Then something clicked beneath the basement stairs.<\/p>\n<p>A panel opened.<\/p>\n<p>Behind it was a narrow cavity containing a metal box.<\/p>\n<p>No computers.<\/p>\n<p>No drives.<\/p>\n<p>Paper.<\/p>\n<p>Photographs.<\/p>\n<p>Microfilm.<\/p>\n<p>Handwritten notebooks.<\/p>\n<p>My mother had built an archive designed to survive thirty years of technological change.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas touched the first notebook as though it might burn him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe did it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe copied everything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The archive documented early Creston trials.<\/p>\n<p>Consent forms altered after signatures.<\/p>\n<p>Patients enrolled without understanding what researchers intended.<\/p>\n<p>Children assigned numbers.<\/p>\n<p>Complications concealed.<\/p>\n<p>Deaths rewritten as unrelated medical events.<\/p>\n<p>My mother had collected names.<\/p>\n<p>Real names.<\/p>\n<p>Morales began calling federal prosecutors before she finished the first folder.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah found the file concerning our mother.<\/p>\n<p>The toxic compound.<\/p>\n<p>Dosage.<\/p>\n<p>Delivery.<\/p>\n<p>Robert Vale\u2019s authorization.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas\u2019s face changed when she handed it to him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou were right,\u201d Sarah said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wish I hadn\u2019t been.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The signature at the bottom belonged to Vale.<\/p>\n<p>Not initials.<\/p>\n<p>Not a code.<\/p>\n<p>His full name.<\/p>\n<p>Robert Adrian Vale.<\/p>\n<p>Our mother had preserved the proof that her death was murder.<\/p>\n<p>I expected satisfaction.<\/p>\n<p>Instead I felt tired.<\/p>\n<p>Evidence could prosecute a man.<\/p>\n<p>It could not return the woman whose voice I barely remembered without recordings.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah sat on the basement floor and cried.<\/p>\n<p>I sat beside her.<\/p>\n<p>For a while neither of us spoke.<\/p>\n<p>Then she whispered, \u201cShe knew she was going to die.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe made all this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe was trying not to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s not what I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sarah looked at the boxes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe prepared for us to find it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That was true.<\/p>\n<p>Our mother had planned for failure without surrendering to it.<\/p>\n<p>A floorboard creaked upstairs.<\/p>\n<p>Every officer moved.<\/p>\n<p>Morales drew her weapon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFederal police. Identify yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Silence.<\/p>\n<p>Then a woman answered.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cClaire?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>My heart stopped.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas whispered, \u201cEve.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She came down slowly with both hands visible.<\/p>\n<p>The first thing I noticed was that she did not look exactly like me.<\/p>\n<p>That relieved me.<\/p>\n<p>The second thing I noticed was that the resemblance was undeniable.<\/p>\n<p>Same height.<\/p>\n<p>Similar jaw.<\/p>\n<p>Same gray-green eyes.<\/p>\n<p>But Eve was thinner, her dark hair threaded heavily with silver. A scar ran from her temple into her hairline.<\/p>\n<p>She looked at Sarah first.<\/p>\n<p>Then me.<\/p>\n<p>Her face tightened.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou look like Margaret.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Our mother.<\/p>\n<p>I stood.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou knew her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou called her mother.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eve\u2019s eyes filled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe asked me to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thomas moved toward her.<\/p>\n<p>Eve stepped back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He stopped.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou let us think you were dead,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou did the same.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat was different.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, Thomas. It wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Morales kept the conversation controlled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAre you C-B\/2?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eve looked at me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat are you now?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvelyn Shaw.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A real name.<\/p>\n<p>A life outside Creston.<\/p>\n<p>Morales asked for identification.<\/p>\n<p>Eve slowly produced a wallet.<\/p>\n<p>The credentials were legitimate.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Evelyn Shaw.<\/p>\n<p>Clinical geneticist.<\/p>\n<p>Federal biomedical consultant.<\/p>\n<p>Morales stared.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019ve been consulting on Creston investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor six years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWithout disclosing that you were a Creston subject?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf I disclosed it, Vale would have known I survived.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thomas looked at her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe knew.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot until recently.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen Emma was activated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>My stomach tightened.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCreston compared her response to archived early-generation data.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYours.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Emma\u2019s activation had not only awakened something in her biology.<\/p>\n<p>It had exposed Eve.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat did Vale sell?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eve\u2019s expression changed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot Emma\u2019s full sequence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour letter said he sold it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe sold partial adaptive pathways derived from her data. Enough for buyers to experiment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow many?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFour that I know of.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou said three plus a fourth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThree Vale knows. The fourth stole it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eve looked toward the boxes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019re here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She led us to a second compartment inside the archive.<\/p>\n<p>Our mother\u2019s story provided the combination.<\/p>\n<p>Seven stones.<\/p>\n<p>The sequence opened a mechanical lock.<\/p>\n<p>Inside sat four folders.<\/p>\n<p>Each marked with a symbol.<\/p>\n<p>A crown.<\/p>\n<p>A serpent.<\/p>\n<p>A tower.<\/p>\n<p>A circle.<\/p>\n<p>Eve opened the crown.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPrivate military research contractor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The serpent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPharmaceutical consortium operating through shell companies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The tower.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cForeign biomedical institute.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then the circle.<\/p>\n<p>No company name.<\/p>\n<p>Only transaction records.<\/p>\n<p>Vale had sold three controlled data packages.<\/p>\n<p>The fourth transfer had been copied without authorization.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy whom?\u201d Morales asked.<\/p>\n<p>Eve handed her a photograph.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Adrian Mercer.<\/p>\n<p>The physician who had performed Emma\u2019s appendectomy.<\/p>\n<p>The physician now cooperating with investigators.<\/p>\n<p>My stomach dropped.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe told police he was helping.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen why steal the sequence?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause he has a daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The room became silent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow old?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSeven.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs she sick?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eve nodded.<\/p>\n<p>A degenerative neurological disorder.<\/p>\n<p>Progressive.<\/p>\n<p>No established cure.<\/p>\n<p>Mercer had joined Creston because Vale promised access to experimental treatments.<\/p>\n<p>The same pattern.<\/p>\n<p>Fear.<\/p>\n<p>A child.<\/p>\n<p>An impossible promise.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat did Mercer do?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe copied Emma\u2019s activated sequence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo treat his daughter?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDid he?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eve hesitated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe think so.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThink?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe living material mentioned in my letter is not another Creston child.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She looked directly at me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s Mercer\u2019s daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I felt my stomach turn.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere is she?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMissing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Morales immediately called the team holding Mercer.<\/p>\n<p>His interview room was empty.<\/p>\n<p>The officer assigned outside had been found unconscious in a stairwell.<\/p>\n<p>Mercer had escaped less than twenty minutes earlier.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe knew we found this place,\u201d Morales said.<\/p>\n<p>Eve shook her head.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe knew I would bring you here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause he helped me find Margaret\u2019s archive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thomas stared at her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou worked with Mercer?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor two years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe wanted his daughter out of Vale\u2019s reach.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd you trusted him?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYet you helped him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought desperation might still have boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sarah laughed bitterly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe keep learning that lesson.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eve accepted it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat happens to Mercer\u2019s daughter if he used Emma\u2019s sequence?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I asked.<\/p>\n<p>Eve answered carefully.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe may improve.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd then?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSame instability?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPossibly worse. Emma inherited the regulatory architecture naturally before activation. Mercer\u2019s daughter didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sarah whispered, \u201cHer body could reject it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOr adapt badly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Morales asked where Mercer would go.<\/p>\n<p>Eve named a rural research property Creston had abandoned years earlier.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas shook his head.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVale knows that site.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s why Mercer may choose it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy go somewhere Vale knows?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo get something stored there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eve looked at me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour mother\u2019s original regulatory culture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I stared.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought the archive had the stabilizer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt has the formula. The culture is different.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s living tissue descended directly from Margaret\u2019s cells.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The source.<\/p>\n<p>The thing Vale had spent decades trying to reproduce.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf Mercer gets it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe may be able to stabilize his daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat sounds good.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would be, if that were all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat else can he do?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eve looked toward the four buyer files.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cReconstruct enough of the adaptive system to sell a complete treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The nightmare would begin again.<\/p>\n<p>Morales ordered teams toward the rural property.<\/p>\n<p>Eve said they would be too late.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow do you know?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMercer has a forty-minute lead.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen we follow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thomas objected.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvelyn.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She turned.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re not going.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve spent thirty years going.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis isn\u2019t your responsibility anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eve looked at him with something between affection and fury.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou don\u2019t get to decide when my responsibility ends.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I understood that sentence too well.<\/p>\n<p>Before leaving, Eve handed me one final envelope from our mother\u2019s archive.<\/p>\n<p>My name was written on it.<\/p>\n<p>I opened it.<\/p>\n<p>Inside was a photograph.<\/p>\n<p>Our mother stood between two girls.<\/p>\n<p>One was me at eleven.<\/p>\n<p>The other was Eve.<\/p>\n<p>She looked perhaps twelve, though she had been born later.<\/p>\n<p>Creston had accelerated parts of her early development.<\/p>\n<p>On the back, our mother had written:<\/p>\n<p>Two daughters are not two experiments.<\/p>\n<p>They are two lives.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah read it over my shoulder.<\/p>\n<p>Eve did not.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve seen it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I looked at her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou kept this here?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMargaret did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou knew she considered you family.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen why stay hidden from us?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her answer was immediate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause everyone Vale loved became leverage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That included Daniel.<\/p>\n<p>Mark.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah.<\/p>\n<p>Ethan.<\/p>\n<p>Lily.<\/p>\n<p>Me.<\/p>\n<p>Emma.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps even Vale himself had once believed what he did was love.<\/p>\n<p>That did not make it less destructive.<\/p>\n<p>Morales\u2019s radio sounded.<\/p>\n<p>Agents had reached Mercer\u2019s last known vehicle.<\/p>\n<p>Abandoned.<\/p>\n<p>Blood on the passenger seat.<\/p>\n<p>A child\u2019s medical bracelet.<\/p>\n<p>Eve went pale.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHis daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat\u2019s her name?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnna.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The bracelet confirmed it.<\/p>\n<p>ANNA MERCER.<\/p>\n<p>The blood type matched the child\u2019s records.<\/p>\n<p>Then an agent found a note inside the vehicle.<\/p>\n<p>Not addressed to us.<\/p>\n<p>To Vale.<\/p>\n<p>YOU PROMISED SHE WOULD LIVE.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah whispered, \u201cHe\u2019s going after him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Vale was in federal custody.<\/p>\n<p>Mercer could not reach him.<\/p>\n<p>Unless the note meant something else.<\/p>\n<p>Eve understood first.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe doesn\u2019t mean Robert.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWho does he mean?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She looked at Thomas.<\/p>\n<p>Then Daniel, who had joined through Morales\u2019s secure video feed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAdrian Vale.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Daniel frowned.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s my father\u2019s middle name.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eve shook her head.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRobert took Adrian\u2019s name.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thomas went white.<\/p>\n<p>I stared between them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWho is Adrian Vale?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Neither answered.<\/p>\n<p>Then Eve said the words that opened another buried door.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRobert wasn\u2019t the founder of Creston.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She looked at me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe inherited it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom whom?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHis older brother.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thomas closed his eyes.<\/p>\n<p>Eve continued.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDr. Adrian Vale.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A man everyone believed had died forty years ago.<\/p>\n<p>A man whose authorization still appeared on recent Creston transactions.<\/p>\n<p>A man Mercer believed could save Anna.<\/p>\n<p>And according to the location data agents recovered from Mercer\u2019s vehicle, someone using Adrian Vale\u2019s credentials had entered the rural research property less than an hour ago.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h2><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/?p=11189\">Click here to continue reading: PART 14: The Founder Everyone Believed Dead Was Waiting at Creston\u2019s First Laboratory, Where Mercer Had Brought His Daughter for One Last Treatment<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The safe house looked disappointingly ordinary. After everything Creston had hidden beneath hospitals and garages, I expected fences, cameras, concrete, something that announced the place had once been used for &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11188"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11208,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11188\/revisions\/11208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}