Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
K athleen watched Veronica closely as the words settled in. She looked tense, her shoulders stiff as if ready to be turned away. And she looked tired and older.
“Are you staying or going?” Kathleen asked.
Veronica met her eyes. “Do you want me to stay?”
It was a question Kathleen hadn’t thought through properly. Her world was tilted, not orderly or neat how she liked it.
Veronica was chaos.
She crossed her arms, not to shield herself, but to stay upright. “I don’t know. Part of me wants to slam the door in your face. Another remembers what it felt like to have you beside me at night… that part wants you to stay.”
Veronica didn’t smile, merely nodded. “Then I’ll stay, not as Veronica but who I truly am. There will be no more lies.”
Kathleen held still. “Tell me who that is.”
Veronica hesitated, slowly slipped her coat off, and sat on the couch before she looked up again. “My name is Marise Cummings,” she said quietly. “I’ve been alone since I was seventeen.”
Kathleen took the seat opposite and listened.
“I grew up in a place that you would have hated. It was a concrete slum where nothing bloomed, only bruises and cigarette ash. My mother had a string of boyfriends, all of them dropkicks, some of them violent.” Her voice stayed steady, but her eyes had gone somewhere far away.
“There was one in particular I loathed. When he beat me, I learned soon enough that no one was coming to save me. My mother ignored the violence; it was simply part of her world.”
Kathleen felt her chest tighten.
“By fifteen I was working at a motel, cleaning rooms for cash. At sixteen, I was slinging coffee at a twenty-four-hour diner and hiding my wages in a tin under the floorboard. At seventeen, I walked out with a backpack and a high school diploma. My mother, already half-wasted at eleven in the morning, didn’t say goodbye.
She stared at me like she was betting how long it’d take before I came crawling back. ”
“But you didn’t.”
“No. I never did.” Veronica’s voice roughened.
“I slept in shelters. Hostels. Shared flats with five girls and a dog, worked double shifts and started studying psychology—one subject at a time. Not because I wanted to help people, but because I needed to understand why people hurt each other. Why others let it happen.”
Kathleen moved to the edge of the couch, her arms slack, listening not only to the words but the silence behind them.
Kathleen’s fingers tightened around the edge of the cushion as as Veronica told her story.
The disappointment of her job at the crisis centre, her first real paying position and the people who tried to control her.
When Veronica finally raised her head, there was something unguarded in her expression.
“I walked out and never went back. Burned the SIM, changed my name and went freelance. Took contracts, but was never directly involved with what happened afterwards. Clients remained anonymous. I was a ghost who could find anything.”
“And this contract?”
“Someone paid me a lot of money to find out what you were working on and if you were nearly finished the project. That’s all, find the info and get out.”
Kathleen said after a long moment. “I was evasive, so you tried to find out from Ted.”
“That’s right.”
“At the cabin…why didn’t you tell me?”
Veronica sighed. “Because I didn’t want to lose you.” She looked at her pleadingly. “I didn’t expect to care this much.”
Kathleen swallowed hard. Her throat felt dry, her chest tight. “You lied to me.”
“I did and I’m sorry for all of it. I don’t expect forgiveness, but I needed you to know the truth.”
There was an uncomfortable silence between them, then Kathleen said quietly, “So what now?”
Veronica met her gaze. “I’ll go if you want me to. If you’ll have me, I’ll stay. Not as Veronica. As me. Marise.”
Kathleen walked to the window and stood there a long moment, watching the lights of the city blink against the dark. Then she turned back, her voice low. “There has to be no more secrets. If it’s all right, I’ll continue to call you Veronica. I don’t like the woman you were.”
“Maybe you’re right. A new name, a fresh start,” Veronica said.
“Take off your coat,” Kathleen said softly. “You’re not leaving tonight.”
Veronica’s eyes filled, though no tears fell. She slipped her coat from her shoulders and hung it by the door. Kathleen stepped toward her and reached out, not to kiss her, but to take her hand.
They sat down together at the table, side by side, the weight of everything between them beginning to shift.
Kathleen turned to her. “One more thing. I hope you like chamomile tea.”
Veronica made a face. “I’ll learn to love it.”
“Good,” said Kathleen. “Now let’s get down to business. We have to work out who supplied Darlene with my research. If I can engineer a different species of plants and you can find anything or anyone, surely, we can work out between us who’s the culprit.”
Kathleen spread her notes on the dining table while Veronica opened her laptop beside her.
“First off,” Kathleen said, “I did some investigating. The person we are after must understand complex science, or know what to look for. They need access to the lab and know Darlene enough to work with her. I made a list of surnames that started with W in the Institute. There were four: Edith Williams; Molly Woods (Admin); George Wainright and Ted Winters. After I crossed off Edith and Molly, I remember George’s wife, Eve.
Though she’s not officially attached to the Institute, George had master key access.
She’s also a trained scientist and her credentials are impressive. ”
Veronica tapped her fingers on the table. “It fits, but does she have any ties to Darlene?”
“Not that I know of,” said Kathleen. “They’re chalk and cheese. Darlene is a socialite while Eve is an academic. And the Wainwrights are wealthy, so she wouldn’t need money.”
“Perhaps we should be searching back into Darlene’s past… I only investigated her second husband.” She pulled out the tape, fast forwarded it until she had the part she needed, then pressed play.
Darlene’s voice came on. “ You’re spot on. I married a lecturer, if you can believe it. Alan taught biology at UVA. I baked, played hostess, and eventually realised I was dying of boredom.”
Veronica asked . “You left him?”
“I outgrew him. And I didn’t feel like spending the rest of my life grading papers and making lasagna for dinner guests who talked in circles.”
“Edith went to UVA where she became friends with Darlene. First husband was a biology lecturer there,” said Veronica, facing her laptop. “This’ll take a minute. The information we need isn’t exactly going to show up on a university alumni list or a Google search.”
Kathleen nodded slowly. “What are you thinking?”
Veronica slid a slim black device from her bag and plugged it into the laptop—something Kathleen didn’t recognise, but it blinked twice before disappearing into the casing. She watched as a cascade of command lines filled the screen. No browser tabs. No mouse clicks needed. It was pure code.
“What is that?” Kathleen asked.
“A scraper I built a few years ago,” Veronica replied without looking up.
“It piggybacks off university systems and institutional archives. They’re too old and messy for most people to care about securing, but they’re a goldmine for background history: faculty rosters, publication lists, old emails, sometimes even digital card access records.
As long as you know what you’re looking for. ”
Kathleen stared at her. “You … get into places like that?”
“I told you,” Veronica said patiently, “I’m good at finding people. Even if they don’t want to be found.”
Kathleen didn’t speak, aware now of exactly how much power Veronica had and how casually she could access what others thought was buried.
The program continued running, lines of data flowing like water, and then it paused.
“There,” Veronica said. “The biology department. University of Virginia. I’m setting the time window between 1991 and 2005, and narrowing to the first name: Alan.”
She tapped a few more keys, eyes darting as several entries popped up—course listings, internal memos, faculty directories. Veronica clicked into one.
“Bingo. Here it is. Dr. Alan Winters, tenured in ‘92. Lectured in biology.” She gave a soft whistle. “Good God. Darlene was married to Ted’s father.”
She opened another window, ran a search for conference attendees and faculty family housing from the same time period. “Okay. Here’s confirmation. His wife is listed as Fay Darlene Winters. She was twenty-seven when they married.”
Kathleen stared. “That’s her.”
Veronica was already running a different query. “Now let’s look at state birth records.” Her fingers moved quickly, but her voice slowed. “Charlottesville, Virginia… if Ted is twenty-eight, he was born in ’97. We’ll check the twelve-month window either side.”
Kathleen sat forward, breath held.
Veronica muttered under her breath. “Come on…”
And then, she stopped. “Got it,” she said. “Edward Alan Winters. Born August 1997. Father: Alan Frederick Winters. Mother: Fay Darlene Winters.”
She turned the screen toward Kathleen. The entry was clinical and clear.
Kathleen let out a sound, not quite a gasp, not quite a word.
Veronica sat back, blinking as if even she hadn’t expected the puzzle to fall into place so neatly. “Ted’s her son.”
“She must have left him with his father,” Veronica said, “when the marriage ended.”
“But obviously kept in contact,” Kathleen replied bitterly. “Ted—short for Edward. What an idiot I’ve been not to connect the name to the initial.”
Veronica closed the laptop with a soft click. “She recruited him, she used him to steal your work.”
Kathleen set her mug aside with hands that had gone numb.
“No. He recruited her. A mother with money who wasn’t afraid to steal to make more.
When I applied for a PhD biology student to assist me in the laboratory, he was the best qualified.
When he saw how ground-breaking my research was, he must have concocted the scheme with his mother.
Ted was the mastermind behind this theft.
He would be the only one to recognize my research was the new energy of the future and would be worth billions. ”
They sat in silence as it sank in.
Katherine was the first to speak. “Where do we go from here?”
“I’ll put everything about the auction on a flash drive. In the morning, give it to the Feds and leave it in their hands to take care of Darlene. Then we’ll face Ted in the lab with the police.”
Kathleen nodded. “Together.”
Veronica reached over and laced their fingers. “Yes. Together.”