Chapter 6 - The Birth Certificate
"This isn't possible."
Carmen didn't answer.
"Grandma."
"I raised you."
"That's not what I asked."
Carmen cried quietly.
Elena had grown up believing her mother, Sofia Salgado, died shortly after childbirth.
Now a certified document named Rachel Carter.
Ethan's wife.
"Rachel was only a teenager when you were born," Carmen said.
"How do you know her?"
"She was my patient."
Carmen had once worked as a maternity nurse.
Rachel's wealthy family had hidden the pregnancy.
The baby was placed privately with Carmen's daughter Sofia.
Sofia raised Elena until she died when Elena was five.
"Rachel knew?"
"Yes."
"Did she ever contact me?"
"No."
Carmen hesitated.
"Until six months before the accident."
Elena felt betrayed by two lives at once.
"She found me?"
"She came here."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"She wasn't trying to take you away. She wanted to meet you."
Elena remembered that year.
A woman outside her nursing school.
Blonde.
Watching her.
Elena had assumed she was waiting for someone.
Rachel.
"Did Ethan know?"
"No."
"And Lily?"
Carmen shook her head.
Elena struggled to breathe.
If the document was genuine, Lily had been her half sister.
The child Elena had watched enter the emergency room.
The child she had unknowingly helped uncover three years later.
Ethan arrived twenty minutes later.
Elena handed him the certificate.
He read it.
Sat down.
Read it again.
"Rachel had a daughter?"
"Before she met you."
He looked at Elena.
"You."
"I don't know what to believe."
Carmen told him everything.
Ethan listened without interruption.
Then he asked one question.
"Why was Rachel looking for Elena?"
Carmen retrieved another envelope.
Rachel had left it during her visit.
Inside was a letter.
Carmen had promised not to give it to Elena unless Rachel returned.
She never did.
Elena opened it.
My dear Elena,
You don't know me, but I have known about you every day of your life.
Elena stopped.
Ethan looked away, giving her privacy despite sitting three feet from her.
She continued.
Rachel explained that she had been sixteen.
Terrified.
Controlled by parents who cared more about reputation than their daughter.
She had spent years wanting to contact Elena but fearing that appearing would destroy the life Carmen and Sofia built.
Then something changed.
Rachel discovered her father had been connected to Westbridge.
She began investigating her own sealed adoption records and discovered they had been altered.
Someone had used her teenage pregnancy as part of a larger scheme involving falsified identities.
That was why Rachel had approached Elena.
Not merely because she wanted to meet her first daughter.
She believed Elena's original hospital record contained evidence.
At the bottom was one sentence.
If anything happens to me, trust Ethan.
Elena looked at him.
Ethan's eyes were wet.
"She trusted me," he whispered. "And she never got the chance to tell me."
Elena sat opposite him.
"She loved you."
"You don't know that."
"I know how she wrote your name."
Ethan looked at her.
Something passed between them.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Something born from two people standing inside the same wreckage.
Marcus called.
Claire Bennett's old number had connected to a prepaid phone.
One call had been made that morning.
To a school outside Austin.
They drove there.
The school administrator refused to provide information.
Until Ethan showed Lily's photograph.
The woman stared.
"I've seen her."
Ethan's knees almost failed.
"When?"
"Last year."
"Name?"
"Grace Bennett."
Claire had registered a child using her surname.
They obtained an old school photograph.
There she was.
Older.
Eight years old.
Lily.
Ethan touched the screen.
"That's my daughter."
The administrator explained Grace had attended for four months.
Then Claire abruptly withdrew her.
"Why?"
"A man came asking questions."
"Victor?"
"I don't know."
She retrieved an archived visitor log.
One signature.
D. Carter.
Daniel.
Ethan stared at it.
When they returned to the mansion, Daniel was gone.
So was Ana.
On the library table sat a note.
DON'T FOLLOW US.
Ethan crushed it.
Marcus checked surveillance.
Daniel's car had left thirty minutes earlier.
Then Elena noticed something on the back of the note.
Three numbers.
She remembered the Westbridge file.
Room 417.
They drove to the abandoned center.
Room 417 had been sealed.
Ethan forced the door.
Inside stood a hospital bed.
A child's drawings covered the wall.
One showed a tall man holding a little girl's hand.
DADDY.
Another showed a blonde woman.
MOMMY.
Then Elena found a recent drawing.
Four people.
Lily.
Ethan.
Rachel.
And Elena.
Her name was written clearly beneath the fourth figure.
Elena whispered, "How could Lily know who I am?"
A floorboard creaked behind them.
Daniel's voice came from the darkness.
"Because Rachel told her about you before the accident."
He stepped forward.
May you like
Blood covered his shirt.
And he wasn't alone.
