Chapter 3 - The Girl Nobody Was Supposed to Find
Dr. Voss refused to enter until Margaret left the room.
Margaret refused to leave.
So Adrian took the file.
"You have ten seconds to tell me what this is."
Voss looked older than his online photograph.
His hands trembled.
"I ran St. Catherine's Clinic for twenty-three years."
"I know."
"Your mother was one of our donors."
Margaret interrupted.
"Samuel."
He looked at her.
"You've had six years."
"Be careful."
"No."
The same word Adrian had used earlier.
For the first time, Margaret seemed to realize that obedience had abandoned the room.
Voss looked at Adrian.
"Six years ago, two women arrived at two different hospitals within hours of each other."
Adrian frowned.
"Elena was at Mercy General."
"Yes."
"And?"
"The other woman was transferred to St. Catherine's."
"Who?"
Voss glanced at Margaret.
"Vanessa Cole."
The room went silent.
Adrian felt the blood leave his face.
Vanessa appeared at the staircase.
"That's a lie."
Voss turned.
"You were twenty-six."
Vanessa gripped the banister.
"You don't know me."
"I signed your discharge."
Adrian looked between them.
"Vanessa?"
She shook her head.
"No."
Voss continued.
"You delivered a baby girl."
Adrian stared at him.
Not Theo.
A girl.
Six years earlier.
"Who was the father?"
Voss lowered his eyes.
"I don't know."
Margaret said, "Enough."
Adrian rounded on her.
"No. Not anymore."
Voss opened the file.
"The child was healthy. Her mother refused contact immediately after delivery."
Vanessa's face crumpled.
"I was scared."
Everyone turned.
She covered her mouth.
Adrian whispered, "You knew."
Vanessa began crying.
"I was twenty-six. I had nothing. No money. No family that would help me."
"Where is she?"
"I don't know."
Voss looked at Margaret.
Adrian followed his gaze.
His mother said nothing.
"Mom."
Margaret straightened.
"I arranged a private adoption."
Rosa gasped.
"Without records?"
"There were records."
Voss shook his head.
"Not legal ones."
Adrian stared at his mother.
"Why?"
Margaret didn't answer.
Voss did.
"Because the child's father was Daniel Mercer."
Adrian stopped breathing.
Daniel.
His younger brother.
Dead seven years.
Killed in a car accident before anyone knew Vanessa was pregnant.
Adrian looked at Vanessa.
"You were with Daniel?"
Tears streamed down her face.
"Before you."
The room seemed to contract around him.
Theo suddenly wasn't the first connection between Vanessa and the Mercer family.
There had been another child.
A daughter.
Daniel's daughter.
A Mercer granddaughter.
Margaret had hidden her.
"Why?" Adrian demanded.
Margaret's voice was controlled.
"Daniel was engaged."
"So?"
"His fiancée's family was financing the expansion of Mercer Holdings."
Adrian stared at her.
"You hid his child for a business deal?"
"I protected everything your father and I built."
"By throwing away your granddaughter?"
"I found her a home."
Voss said quietly, "That's not what happened."
Margaret turned on him.
Voss opened the file.
"The adoption failed."
Adrian's stomach dropped.
"What does that mean?"
"The couple withdrew."
"Then where did the baby go?"
Voss looked at Rosa.
Rosa began to cry.
"I took her."
Adrian stared.
"You?"
"Only for one night."
Rosa wiped her eyes.
"Your father discovered what Margaret had done. He told me to bring the baby here."
Margaret whispered, "Stop."
Rosa continued.
"But Elena was still in the hospital."
Adrian suddenly remembered the chaos surrounding Emma's birth.
Elena had hemorrhaged.
She'd been unconscious for hours.
Emma had spent time in observation.
His father had disappeared for most of the night.
Adrian had thought he was handling business.
"What happened?" he asked.
Rosa shook her head.
"I don't know everything. Your father took the baby."
"Where?"
"Mercy General."
Adrian's chest tightened.
Voss said, "That's why I asked Elena whether all four daughters were alive."
Adrian backed away.
"No."
Voss closed the file.
"We need records before making assumptions."
"What assumptions?"
No one answered.
Adrian understood anyway.
Emma.
Six years old.
Born the same night.
But Elena had given birth to Emma.
He had been there.
Hadn't he?
He remembered Elena screaming.
Doctors.
Blood.
A nurse placing a bundled infant briefly near Elena's face.
Then alarms.
Then someone telling him to leave.
Hours later, he held Emma.
But had he ever seen the bracelet?
Had he watched the baby continuously?
No.
"You're saying Emma might not be Elena's biological daughter?"
Voss answered carefully.
"I'm saying two female infants crossed the same medical network on the same night, and records were altered."
Adrian grabbed the edge of the table.
"And Elena's baby?"
"That's the question."
At the hotel, Elena received a message from Adrian.
We need to talk about Emma.
She called immediately.
He answered.
"What happened?"
"Don't panic."
"Never tell a mother not to panic before saying her child's name."
Adrian closed his eyes.
"Vanessa had a daughter six years ago."
Elena said nothing.
"Daniel was the father."
"What?"
"My brother."
"Daniel died before Emma was born."
"Seven months before."
Elena sat down.
"And your mother hid the pregnancy?"
"Yes."
"What does that have to do with Emma?"
Adrian couldn't say it.
Elena's voice sharpened.
"Adrian."
"The baby was taken to Mercy General the night you gave birth."
Elena went still.
"Why?"
"My father was trying to protect her."
"Where is she now?"
"We don't know."
Elena looked across the hotel room.
Emma was coloring at the small table.
She had Elena's smile.
At least Elena had always thought so.
"Say what you're afraid to say."
Adrian whispered, "There may have been a switch."
Elena stood so quickly the chair fell.
"No."
"Elena—"
"No."
"We need DNA tests."
"Emma is my daughter."
"I know."
"No, you don't. You just surrendered her in court."
The words struck him.
Elena continued.
"Whatever some test says, Emma is mine."
"I'm not trying to take her."
"You already gave her away."
Adrian had no defense.
Elena ended the call.
Then she went into the bathroom and locked the door.
For five minutes she allowed herself to fall apart.
Afterward, she washed her face.
When she returned, Emma looked up.
"Mommy?"
"Yeah, baby?"
"Are you sad?"
Elena knelt beside her.
"A little."
Emma touched Elena's cheek.
"I can share my cookie."
Elena laughed through fresh tears.
"That fixes almost everything."
Emma broke the cookie in half.
Elena hugged her.
Biology suddenly seemed both terrifyingly important and completely irrelevant.
The next morning, Elena met Adrian at a private laboratory.
All four girls came.
Adrian crouched when he saw them.
Grace hid behind Elena.
Lily looked away.
Emma waved.
"Hi, Daddy."
Adrian's face broke.
"Hi, sweetheart."
Sophie didn't speak.
Samples were collected.
Elena.
Adrian.
Emma.
Then Sophie, Grace and Lily, because Elena insisted.
"If we're opening the door," she said, "we open it completely."
Results would take twenty-four hours.
Afterward, Elena went with Adrian to bank box 417.
Margaret had tried to block access.
But the box was registered jointly to Adrian and his late father.
Inside were three things.
A letter.
A second hospital bracelet.
And a savings account book.
Adrian opened the letter.
His father's handwriting covered four pages.
Son,
If you're reading this, then I failed to fix what I allowed your mother to do.
Adrian stopped.
Elena took the letter.
"Keep reading."
He did.
Daniel had told his father about Vanessa before the accident.
He knew she was pregnant.
He had planned to acknowledge the child.
After Daniel died, Margaret paid Vanessa to disappear.
Vanessa accepted.
Months later, Margaret arranged the secret birth.
But Adrian's father, Richard, discovered everything.
He tried to retrieve his granddaughter.
Then came the line that made Elena sit down.
There were two infants at Mercy General that night, and confusion occurred during an emergency evacuation caused by an electrical fire in the maternity wing.
Elena remembered alarms.
Smoke.
Nurses moving bassinets.
She had been unconscious.
Richard wrote that he believed one bracelet had been incorrectly transferred.
He spent months investigating.
Then Margaret threatened to destroy Adrian's marriage if he continued.
Elena lowered the letter.
"How?"
Adrian read the next paragraph.
Richard had discovered something else.
Something about Elena's pregnancy.
Something Margaret knew.
But the next page was missing.
Elena searched the box.
Nothing.
Adrian turned the envelope upside down.
A small photograph fell out.
Four-year-old Emma.
Standing beside Richard.
Elena stared.
"Your father died when Emma was one."
Adrian picked up the photograph.
The date on the back said otherwise.
Three years ago.
Impossible.
Elena looked at Adrian.
"Your father didn't die five years ago."
Adrian's face emptied.
Then his phone rang.
The laboratory.
He answered.
Listened.
His eyes moved toward Emma.
Elena stood.
"What?"
Adrian couldn't speak.
She took the phone.
The technician repeated the result.
Emma was not biologically related to Elena.
Elena closed her eyes.
Then came the second result.
Emma was biologically related to Adrian.
But not as his daughter.
The technician had one more finding.
May you like
The biological daughter Elena had given birth to six years earlier was also in their database.
And someone had requested her address that morning.
