Chapter 9 - Two Women With the Same Face
The woman in the van held up a gold ring.
I recognized the shallow scratch along its outer edge.
Ethan had worn it on a chain, not because we were married, but because it had belonged to his father. He had promised that one day he would replace it with a ring meant for me.
The chain was still looped through it.
“Where did you get that?”
“From Ethan.”
The Ross beside me drew a compact pistol from beneath her uniform jacket.
Mason moved in front of Ghost and me.
The woman in the van did not flinch.
“Ask her for her left hand,” she said.
Uniformed Ross kept the pistol trained on the van.
“Do not listen.”
“Show me your hand,” Mason ordered.
She hesitated.
That was enough.
Mason shifted his stance. “Now.”
Her left glove came off.
A pale burn scar crossed the center of her palm.
The woman in the van raised her own bare hand. No scar.
“Admiral Ross was injured in a helicopter fire twelve years ago,” Mason said.
“Officially,” the woman replied.
“Which one of you was injured?”
“Neither.”
The answer chilled me.
She explained in fragments because the sound of the clinic’s front entrance splintering grew louder. Evelyn Ross had a twin sister, Eleanor, whose existence had been buried after she joined a compartmentalized intelligence program.
The two women had exchanged identities during certain operations.
One served publicly.
The other moved where an admiral could not.
“Which one are you?” I asked.
The woman in the van looked at the armed officer beside me.
“She is Eleanor.”
Uniformed Ross—Eleanor—tightened her grip on the pistol.
“Get inside the van,” she ordered.
Ghost growled for the first time.
Low. Controlled. Directed at her.
Mason drew his sidearm but kept it pointed toward the ground.
“You implanted the device?”
“No.”
“You knew about it.”
“I knew a control mechanism existed.”
I felt sick.
“You let them hurt him.”
“I was trying to keep him alive.”
The clinic’s inner door crashed open.
Armed personnel entered the treatment hallway.
The woman in the van leaned across and opened the opposite door. “Decide now.”
Eleanor fired once.
The bullet struck the van’s metal frame, not the woman. Mason shoved Eleanor’s arm upward before she could shoot again.
Ghost lunged—not to bite, but to drive his shoulder into Eleanor’s knees. She fell against the wall.
I climbed into the van with Ghost. Mason followed, pulling Eleanor with him because leaving her behind would mean losing the only person who knew the operation.
The woman drove before the doors fully closed.
Gunfire struck the alley wall.
Mason dragged the side door shut as the van turned hard onto the rain-soaked street.
For two blocks, no one spoke.
Then the driver handed me Ethan’s ring.
Inside the band, tiny numbers had been etched.
Coordinates.
Eleanor laughed from the floor where Mason had restrained her wrists.
“You think he gave you a rescue point?”
The woman driving glanced at her in the mirror.
“What is it, then?”
Eleanor’s smile faded.
“A grave.”
Ghost pressed his nose to the ring and whined.
The van’s navigation system activated without anyone touching it. The coordinates entered themselves.
A route appeared leading to an abandoned naval communications station outside Norfolk.
Then a live status message flashed across the screen:
May you like
SUBJECT CROSS—TRANSFER IN PROGRESS.
📖 Follow the coordinates Ethan carved into his ring—and learn why the abandoned station was still receiving his biometric signal in CHAPTER 10. 👇
