My Husband Says I Died Three Years Ago
A TaleDale Story · Story concept by Nora Ashwick
The first Vale clinic had become a community arts center after the fire.
Detective Chen obtained a warrant by calling a judge at two in the morning. By three, Julian and I were following her through a basement where children’s paintings covered old hospital walls.
The official plans showed no tunnels.
Anna’s map did.
We found the entrance behind shelving in a pottery storeroom. The key from locker 314 opened a narrow steel door. Beyond it, blue tiles descended beneath the building.
“You designed this?” Julian asked.
“Apparently I designed everything except a way to remember it.”
At the end of the passage was a room with blue walls and no windows. A child’s bed stood in one corner. The opposite wall was entirely mirrored.
Lucy had lived here.
Her height had been marked beside the door in pencil. Six years old. Seven. Eight. Someone had added a final line only a month earlier.
Nine.
Chen photographed everything. “If North kept her here, why leave evidence?”
“Because the room wasn’t a prison at first,” I said.
The certainty came without memory. I crossed to the mirror and pressed its lower-right corner. A latch clicked.
The glass swung outward.
Behind it was a surveillance room filled with dead monitors, paper files, and a narrow cot. One monitor still glowed. Its screen showed the room where we stood from six different angles.
Someone had been watching us until moments ago.
A cup of coffee was still warm.
Beside it sat a sandwich with one bite missing and a paperback opened face down. Whoever fled expected to return.
I studied the live monitors. One showed the art-center entrance. Another showed police outside. A third displayed my empty motel room. The fourth showed Celeste sitting inside Chen’s precinct.
She raised her head and looked directly into the camera, then formed four silent words with my mouth.
He is already here.
The feed froze.
Chen called for the officers upstairs. Julian examined the files. Each bore a date and a single first name. Some names had green circles, others red crosses.
I opened the folder marked LUCY.
It contained schoolwork, medical reports, and monthly photographs. The most recent image showed Lucy asleep in Room 217. On the back, Anna had written: I stayed close. I did not abandon her.
“Then where is Anna?”
The mirror closed behind us.
Lights came on across the surveillance room.
A woman stepped from behind a curtain, aiming a pistol at my chest.
I recognized the serious brown-haired face from the photograph.
Anna Cross.
Julian moved toward me.
“Don’t,” Anna said. “Your father is watching the exits.”
Chen kept both hands visible. “Lucy is safe at my precinct.”
Anna’s weapon lowered a fraction. “Is Vivian there?”
“Under questioning.”
“Then Lucy isn’t safe.”
“She has an advocate and two officers.”
“Vivian owns judges. What do two officers cost?”
Chen’s expression hardened, but she did not argue.
Anna looked at me. “You were supposed to wake six weeks ago, retrieve the capsule, and come here. Instead, you wandered to the pier with no memory.”
“Were you the woman outside my motel?”
“No.”
“Who was?”
“The second Celeste.”
Julian swore softly.
Anna opened a cabinet. Inside hung a blond wig, a red coat, and a transparent face covering molded to resemble me.
“North didn’t only copy Julian,” she said. “He copied you. The woman who attacked Celeste, stalked the house, and appeared on camera was anyone Vivian needed her to be.”
“Then my missing three years—”
“Some of those photographs are you. Some are North’s people. Vivian built a criminal case around Anna Cross so no one would believe you if you returned.”
“Why did you trust me with your identity?”
Anna’s eyes filled, but her arm remained steady.
“Because you saved Lucy from her father. Because you promised to destroy the system you created.”
“I created it?”
“Vivian built the clinics. You built the identity network. You were not investigating your mother’s business, Iris.”
She placed a thick file on the table. My signature appeared on every page.
“You were her partner.”