Chapter 5 - THE OTHER REBECCA
The woman’s real name was Sarah Collins.
A thirty-three-year-old waitress with no connection to my company.
Walker's agents recruited her through a domestic-violence shelter, promising a new identity and money.
She agreed to participate in what she believed was witness protection.
They altered her hair, created bruises, placed unnecessary casts on her legs, and taught her details about my life.
When she tried to leave, they drugged her.
The rural clinic planned to announce that “Rebecca Walker” had suffered brain damage and could no longer testify.
I would disappear as Rachel Cole.
Sarah would remain as a legally incapacitated Rebecca.
The company transfer would become permanent.
Sarah woke terrified and ashamed.
“I thought I was helping someone escape.”
She had been turned into evidence against the same kind of woman she wanted to help.
Victim and participant.
Both.
Her testimony exposed the Walker Replacement Center.
Federal agents raided a training property outside Connecticut.
Rooms replicated homes, offices, hospital rooms, and courtrooms.
Actors practiced marriages.
Medical staff practiced injuries.
Substitutes learned signatures and memories.
The family sold identity replacement to wealthy clients.
My case was not unique.
Then agents found a room replicating my private hospital suite.
Same bed.
Same window.
Same monitor.
Same blanket.
A woman in my blue nightgown appeared on recorded rehearsals while Michael practiced dragging her from the bed.
The line was scripted:
“Get out of that bed! I’m done paying for this!”
Caleb’s opening assault had been rehearsed.
The door-handle interruption was expected too.
The script said:
NURSE ENTERS. REBECCA CLAIMS HUSBAND HIT HER. CALEB APPEARS CALM. NURSE DOCUMENTS CONFUSION.
But Detective Hayes’s envelope disrupted the sequence.
Who sent it?
The photographs came from Nathan.
He had planned to expose Caleb at the exact moment the camera activated.
Not to save me.
To seize control of Walker Holdings after Caleb’s arrest.
Nathan used my assault as leverage.
He admitted it.
I told him he did not get to call that rescue.
He agreed.
Then Sarah Collins revealed Michael had taken another woman from the training center.
A patient named Rebecca Walker.
Not me.
Not Sarah.
The first Mrs. Caleb Walker.
Caleb had been married before.
The family told everyone his first wife died in childbirth.
May you like
She was alive.
And she had a daughter.
