Chapter 11 - The Secret Carmen Kept
Ethan pulled Elena back.
Marcus opened the bathroom.
Empty.
The window was open.
A phone rested on the sink.
It rang.
Elena answered.
"Grandma?"
A distorted voice gave an address.
Then disconnected.
Marcus traced it.
Impossible.
The call originated inside the mansion.
They searched every room.
Nothing.
Then Carmen appeared at the end of the hallway.
Elena ran to her.
"Where were you?"
Carmen looked confused.
"Downstairs."
The kidnapping had been fake.
Designed to make Elena leave alone.
Someone wanted her isolated.
Carmen saw the note.
Her expression changed.
"I know that handwriting."
"Whose?"
Carmen sat.
"Your grandfather's."
Elena stared.
"My grandfather is dead."
"Rachel's father isn't."
Another lie.
Carmen explained that Rachel's biological father was not the man who raised her.
Her biological father was Samuel Voss.
A physician.
Founder of Westbridge.
Ethan felt the pieces shift again.
Samuel had supposedly died twenty years earlier.
Carmen knew otherwise.
"He disappeared."
"Why?"
"Because Thomas Carter paid him."
Westbridge's roots went back farther than anyone realized.
Samuel had helped wealthy families conceal pregnancies and arrange private adoptions.
Including Rachel's pregnancy with Elena.
When Rachel discovered this, she realized her own father had altered Elena's birth records.
"Is he working with Victor?"
"I don't know."
A noise came from downstairs.
Marcus found the hidden surveillance room open.
One monitor displayed a message.
HELLO, CARMEN.
Then another.
YOU SHOULD HAVE KEPT THE BABY A SECRET.
Carmen began shaking.
Elena knelt beside her.
"What baby?"
Carmen looked at Ethan.
Then Elena.
"There were two."
Elena went still.
"Two what?"
"Babies."
Rachel had given birth to twins.
Elena and another girl.
Carmen had taken Elena.
The second baby had disappeared before the adoption was completed.
"Rachel never knew?"
"She was told the second child died."
Ethan closed his eyes.
Another dead child who might not have been dead.
Another lie.
"Who took her?" Elena asked.
"Samuel."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
The hidden monitor changed.
A photograph appeared.
Two newborn girls.
Then a recent photograph.
Elena stared at a woman who looked almost exactly like her.
Same eyes.
Same mouth.
Different hair.
Underneath:
SOFIA VOSS.
Elena couldn't breathe.
"My sister?"
Carmen nodded through tears.
"Your twin."
The screen displayed an address.
A hotel in downtown Dallas.
Ethan refused to let Elena go alone.
They entered the hotel suite with Marcus.
No one.
On the bed sat a photograph of Rachel.
Beside it, another photograph showed Sofia.
And Lily.
Taken recently.
Elena picked it up.
"Sofia knew Lily?"
A voice behind them answered.
"Long before you did."
They turned.
A blonde woman stood in the doorway.
Elena stared at her own face reflected in another human being.
"Sofia?"
The woman nodded.
Then she looked at Ethan.
"You need to get Lily out of your mansion."
Ethan's expression changed.
"She's protected."
"No."
Sofia stepped inside.
"That's exactly where Samuel wants her."
"Samuel is alive?"
Sofia laughed bitterly.
"Very."
"Where?"
"Closer than you think."
She handed Elena a photograph.
It showed Samuel Voss standing beside someone at the Carter mansion.
The image was taken that morning.
Ethan stared at the person beside Samuel.
May you like
It was someone he had trusted every day for three years.
Marcus Reed.
