Chapter 20 - The Voice from the Deep
Claire frowned, glancing back at Marcus.
Marcus caught her eye, his smile fading into instant confusion. "Who could have that number? Only Frank, myself, and the FBI director have that direct encrypted line."
The screen displayed no phone number. No caller ID. Only a single word flashing in stark, clinical green letters:
*UNKNOWN.*
Claire picked up the phone. Her heart, which had finally found peace after months of relentless warfare, began to thud with a sudden, dreadful premonition.
She swiped the screen and brought the phone to her ear.
She didn't speak. She waited, listening to the hollow static on the line.
Through the receiver came the faint sound of an ocean breeze. The rhythmic, mechanical beep of an offshore medical monitor.
And then, a woman's voice whispered through the speaker.
The voice was raspy, scarred, and trembling, yet the melodic, aristocratic cadence was unmistakably familiar—a voice Claire had heard on old theater audition tapes hundreds of times.
*"Claire... you did so well, little sister."*
Claire’s breath trapped in her throat. Her blood turned into liquid nitrogen. Her knees nearly gave out beneath her as her fingers gripped the phone so hard the glass screen cracked beneath her fingertips.
"Julianne...?" Claire whispered, her voice barely a breath.
The woman on the other end let out a faint, haunting laugh that sounded like dead leaves dragged across a tombstone.
*"You thought Margaret killed me, Claire? Margaret was too stupid to kill anything. I had to fake my death so the Consortium wouldn't hunt my real secret..."*
The line paused. In the background of the call, the sound of a baby crying—a newborn infant's wail—echoed faintly through the speaker.
*"Emma isn't my niece, Claire. Margaret never stole her from me... She stole her from the vault where I hid her twin."*
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Before Claire could scream, the line went dead.
At that exact second, every light in the penthouse flickered and died. The reinforced biometric locks on the front door hissed open with a sickening pneumatic release, and from the grand hallway outside, the soft, playful notes of a child's music box began to play in the pitch-black darkness.
