Chapter 14 - THE WOMAN WHO SIGNED THE LAST FILEThe investigation uncovered more names.
Doctors.
Researchers.
Charity directors.
Executives.
People who had known about Project Lantern.
Some claimed they had not known the children were being harmed.
Others said they had trusted Cross.
But one person was different.
Dr. Rebecca Hale.
She had signed the final transfer documents.
The documents that had moved Samuel into the institute.
She was now a respected pediatrician.
When police found her, she did not run.
She sat in her office.
Waiting.
“I knew you would come,” she said.
Dr. Vell stared at her.
“Why?”
“Because the boy survived.”
“Which boy?”
“All of them.”
She opened a drawer.
Inside were files.
Hundreds.
Children.
Cases.
Names.
Rebecca had kept copies.
For years.
Why?
“Why didn't you expose Cross?”
Dr. Vell asked.
She looked down.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Of him?”
“Yes.”
“Then why keep the files?”
“Because I knew one day someone would need them.”
James looked at the records.
The truth was larger than he had imagined.
Project Lantern had not been one experiment.
It had been decades of experiments.
And the children were not random.
They had been selected because of a genetic marker.
The marker that appeared on their necks.
The marker connected to the Hayes family.
James stared.
“Why my family?”
Rebecca looked at him.
“Your father.”
“What about him?”
“He was one of the first donors.”
“That doesn't explain anything.”
Rebecca opened another file.
Inside was an old medical report.
James's father's name.
His blood.
His neurological profile.
Then a photograph.
A baby.
James.
Rebecca said:
“Your father believed the marker could be inherited.”
James felt sick.
“He tested me?”
“Yes.”
“Without my knowledge?”
“You were a child.”
James stared at the photograph.
The mark was there.
On his neck.
A tiny dark mark.
He had never noticed it.
Rebecca continued:
“Your father believed the Hayes family carried a rare biological trait.”
“And Oliver inherited it.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did Cross need Eli?”
Rebecca looked at him.
“Because Lily's family carried something different.”
“What?”
“The ability to recognize the memory.”
James frowned.
Eli's gift had never been magic.
It was biological.
He could see patterns others missed.
He could recognize signs.
He could connect information.
And Cross had spent years trying to combine the Hayes marker with the Moore marker.
Oliver was the result.
A child who carried both.
James felt sick.
“My son was created for this.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No.”
She looked toward Oliver's photograph.
May you like
“He was born a child.”
Cross turned him into a project.
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