Chapter 6 - Leah Took Off The Mask
The chapel was empty except for one woman in the last row.
Cap low.
Black mask.
I closed the door behind me.
She didn't turn.
“Leah.”
Her shoulders moved once.
“Rachel.”
Her real voice.
Not the canteen voice?
The canteen had been silent.
The unknown woman had said nothing.
Good.
I moved down the aisle.
“Take it off.”
She looked at me.
“Do you want to see me?”
I almost laughed.
“What kind of question is that?”
“One nobody asked three years ago.”
I stopped.
Leah removed the cap.
Then the mask.
Same woman from Vanessa's photograph.
Older.
Thinner.
Small scar near her right temple.
Alive.
“Your mother thinks you're being held.”
“I know.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
“Have you been?”
Leah considered.
“Sometimes.”
Not clean.
“By Julian?”
“Sometimes by Julian. Sometimes by circumstance. Sometimes by my own choices.”
That answer made me sit.
She stayed standing.
“You sent the message that brought me back.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Julian needed Vanessa to certify Sarah Mercer wasn't you.”
“He has records.”
“He has enough records to create doubt.”
“And you?”
“I have enough to create more.”
“Why bring me here?”
“Because Vanessa would keep lying if the choice was abstract.”
I stared.
“You used me.”
“Yes.”
No defense.
“She hit me trying to get me out of the canteen.”
Leah's face tightened.
“I didn't know she would put her hands on you.”
“You knew she'd panic.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Julian would be there.”
“Yes.”
“You brought both of us into the same room.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Julian has spent three years keeping us in separate versions.”
She sat two rows ahead.
“I wanted one event he couldn't explain differently to each of us.”
I hated that I understood.
Still wrong.
“What is Julian?”
“Not what he calls himself.”
“Useful.”
Leah almost smiled.
“He built the continuity network.”
“The fake-dead system.”
“It wasn't supposed to be that.”
“What was it supposed to be?”
“A way to move vulnerable witnesses quickly when local chains were compromised.”
“Off books.”
“Partly.”
“Illegal.”
“Sometimes.”
“Then people like you found duplicate casualty records.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Some names belonged to witnesses who asked to disappear.”
She looked at me.
“Others didn't.”
There.
“How many?”
“I don't know.”
“You had eleven.”
“I had eleven cases I couldn't explain.”
“Voss?”
“He said each had a reason.”
“Did they?”
“Some.”
“So what's the conspiracy?”
Leah's face hardened.
“The system stopped distinguishing between protecting someone from a threat and protecting an institution from someone inconvenient.”
That was enough.
No map of a secret empire.
“What happened the night of the fire?”
Leah looked toward the altar.
“You think somebody tried to kill us.”
“Yes.”
“They didn't.”
I stared.
“What?”
“The fire wasn't an attack.”
“Then why—”
“Electrical fault in the old depot.”
I laughed once.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Voss told you that.”
“Independent investigators did too.”
I stood.
“Then why did we run?”
“Because the alarm started while we were discussing eleven people who were officially dead and possibly alive.”
She looked up.
“We were already scared.”
My memories had filled fear with an attacker later.
A reason.
A villain.
Leah continued:
“You fell in the stairwell.”
“I remember smoke.”
“You hit your head.”
“You called your mother.”
“Yes.”
“You called Voss.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Her face tightened.
“Because he had already told me if I ever found a case that looked genuinely compromised, call him before I called command.”
I stared.
“You trusted him.”
“For about twelve hours.”
“Long enough.”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“Moved you.”
“And you?”
“I stayed.”
“Why?”
“To find out why your death status appeared before anyone had confirmed you were dead.”
My skin went cold.
“So that part wasn't accident.”
“No.”
The fire had been.
The paperwork after it wasn't.
“Who entered it?”
Leah looked at me.
“I still don't know.”
“Three years.”
“I know.”
“What do you know?”
She leaned forward.
“The first death entry hit the system forty-seven minutes after the fire.”
Before Vanessa found me alive.
Before my mother was notified.
Before anyone should have concluded anything.
“Voss?”
“Maybe.”
“Vanessa?”
“No.”
“You're sure?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because she wasn't authorized to enter that field.”
That did not make her innocent later.
It removed one clean accusation.
Then Leah said:
“Julian didn't bring me today.”
“I know.”
“He thinks I came because he asked.”
“Why let him?”
“Because I need him to walk into the four o'clock meeting confident.”
My stomach tightened.
“What happens at four?”
Leah looked at the clock.
“Your mother stops being the only person who has to decide whether she keeps you dead.”
I frowned.
“Vanessa isn't my mother.”
Leah stared.
May you like
“Not Vanessa.”
And just like that, another part of the room changed.
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