Emelie was in the laundry room, the dryer tumbling rhythmically in the background. She held a burner phone to her ear.
"Ghost," a voice crackled. It was Dr. Vance. "Your protocol... it's genius. The board is stunned. They want to nominate you for the Lasker Award."
"No names," Emelie whispered.
"Dr. Dillon Hunt is demanding a meeting," Vance said. "He says he knows the syntax. He says only one person writes formulas like that. Garvin Glover."
"Garvin is dead," Emelie said.
"He thinks you're his ghost. Literally. Or a protégé. He's going to be at the Bio-Ethics Summit in Baden-Baden next week. He wants to meet the Ghost."
Baden-Baden.
That was where the Wilder family castle was. Where they were going.
"Tell him Ghost doesn't do meetings," Emelie said.
She hung up and broke the SIM card in half.
She walked past the study. Clifton was shouting.
"...I don't care! The match is perfect! We have to do the transplant now!"
Emelie froze.
Match. Transplant.
"Lily is the only viable donor," Clifton said.
Emelie's heart stopped.
He wasn't just using her mother's samples.
He was using Lily.
Her mother's marrow must have run out or failed. And Lily... Lily shared 25% of her grandmother's DNA.
But that didn't make sense. HLA matching required specific antigen compatibility, not just shared DNA percentages. For Lily to match Eleanora, Eleanora would have to be...
Related.
The realization hit Emelie like a freight train. Eleanora wasn't just a mistress. She was family. But how?
He was taking Lily to Germany to harvest her bone marrow for Eleanora.
The horror was so absolute it nearly knocked Emelie to the floor.
She ran upstairs.
She didn't scream. She didn't cry.
She pulled out a suitcase.
She packed Lily's clothes. She packed her own.
Then she went to the safe.
She took out the laptop. She took out a portable nanopore genetic sequencer-a device no larger than a smartphone but capable of full genome sequencing. She took out a voice recorder.
She packed them all.
She sat on the edge of the bed, shaking.
"You will not touch her," she whispered to the empty room. "Over my dead body."
She opened the secure satellite uplink on her laptop. She found an old encrypted contact ID. Dillon Hunt.
She typed a message.
I will be in Baden-Baden. If you want to meet Ghost, find a way to get into the Wilder Castle.
She hesitated. This was dangerous. Unmasking herself could lose her everything.
But she needed an ally. And Dillon was the only one who respected the science.
She hit Send.
A minute later, a reply came.
I'll be there.
