Chapter 8
Celia's First Name
Celia removed Mira's pearl earrings before entering the west wing.
Without them, she looked less like a replacement and more like the cousin Mira remembered: the orphan Lydia brought home at nine, always watching before she spoke.
"My first lesson was your signature," Celia said. "My second was which memories belonged to me and which belonged to you."
She set a drive on the table. It held Lydia's rehearsal videos, trust instructions, and payments to the clinic that manufactured Mira's chart.
"Why now?" Elias asked.
"Owen's order showed me the future. Lydia does not retire liabilities."
Mira did not offer forgiveness. "Release Nessa's son and Tomas's daughter. Then testify."
"I cannot release charges I did not file."
"You can authenticate who ordered them."
Celia looked at the locked door. "If I leave this room beside you, I lose the only name anyone has ever respected."
"Then tell the truth under your first one."
The drive began copying to Elias's encrypted case file. At sixty percent, every light in the wing died. Tomas's emergency radio came alive.
Nessa's son had been arrested during transport to arraignment. The new charge was assaulting an officer. Hospital intake showed a fractured skull.
Nessa made one sound and reached for the door.
Mira pulled the drive before the copy completed. "We go now."
Elias blocked the corridor only long enough to ask, "The gala evidence?"
"A living witness outranks a complete file."
Behind them, Celia picked up the unfinished drive.
When the backup lights returned, she was gone.