I Found My Father Alive 22 Years After His Funeral—Inside a Secret Lab Full of Women Who Looked Like My Dead Mother. Then He Whispered, “There Were Only Supposed to Be Two of You.”

Marcus's face filled the monitor. Rain ran off his gray hair. A guard held his arms behind him.

"Clara, I'm sorry," he said.

"Sorry for what?" I shouted at the screen.

"For the empty coffin. For everything."

Rusk appeared beside him and adjusted the camera. "Marcus arranged the burial because your father couldn't attend his own funeral. He also approved the transfer that sent Iris away."

Iris stood rigid beside me.

Marcus didn't deny it. "I was afraid. Helena threatened to put the girls in the lab if I talked. I signed the orders, then hid Iris with my cousin."

"You let me mourn him for twenty-two years," I said.

"I know. That's on me."

Rusk rested a hand on his shoulder. "He's been laundering guilt into heroism ever since. Last week he stole the birth ledger and tried to wake Elias. He couldn't reach the chambers, so he brought you instead."

Marcus looked straight at me.

"I meant to tell you at the cabin. I didn't know whether the woman I saw was Clara or Wren. I panicked."

"You pointed a gun at my heart."

His face crumpled. "I know."

Rusk leaned closer to the camera. "Bring me the archive keys. I'll let him go."

Wren shook her head once.

"Don't," she mouthed.

I stared at Marcus, at the man who'd stood beside my father's fake grave and let me leave flowers there for years.

"You're going to have to live long enough to testify," I told him.

Iris unplugged the screen before Rusk could reply.

We searched the shelves. The last cabinet held a red cassette tape marked MIRIAM - PERSONAL, and a folder bearing Veridian's original seal.

Inside was my father's signature, authorizing research on my mother's cells. Under it, a second signature permitted continued harvesting after her death.

That one was dated two years after she died.

"A dead woman can't consent," Iris said.

Wren took a picture of the page.

Then the cassette player on the shelf clicked on by itself.