CHAPTER 5 — THE SECOND DNA FILE
Emily stared at the message.
“What truth?”
No one answered.
The hospital locked down every floor.
Security found Charles’s cane in the elevator.
They did not find the man carrying it.
At sunrise, Daniel entered Emily’s room with a sealed folder.
“Your father placed this with the child’s trust documents.”
Inside was a prenatal laboratory report.
Emily scanned the pages.
Blood tests.
Genetic markers.
Medical codes.
On the final page, Charles had written:
Do not allow the baby to be delivered at an Ashford-controlled hospital.
Emily looked at Daniel.
“Why?”
“The supporting records are missing.”
“Who had access?”
“Your father, Dr. Ward, and me.”
Emily remembered the recording.
Someone inside Charles’s legal team had betrayed him.
“Did Preston know about this file?”
Daniel hesitated.
“I cannot prove that he did.”
That answer terrified her more than a lie.
Emily remembered the lullaby her father used to sing when she was young.
The recorder had mentioned a hidden location tied to the song.
By noon, Detective Grant escorted her to the Bennett family estate.
Inside Charles’s library was a painted mural.
A silver moon.
Nine stars.
A river winding through painted trees.
Emily pressed the ninth star.
A hidden compartment opened beneath the river.
Inside were three objects.
A metal key.
A photograph.
And a bank receipt.
The key was marked BRANCH.
The receipt belonged to Branch National Bank.
The photograph showed Charles beside Dr. Ward and an unknown dark-haired woman.
On the back, her father had written:
She knows why Preston married Emily.
At the bank, the key opened a private box.
Inside was a financial ledger, a cassette tape, and a sealed DNA report.
The ledger documented millions transferred through Ashford shell companies.
Beside many transactions were Preston’s initials.
Beside others were Daniel Mercer’s.
Daniel went pale.
“I have never seen this.”
Detective Grant took the ledger.
Emily opened the DNA report.
The names listed were hers, Preston’s, and the unborn child’s.
She read the conclusion.
Then read it again.
Presumed biological relationship between Preston Ashford and fetus: excluded.
Emily’s hands began shaking.
“That is impossible.”
She had never been with anyone else.
Grant examined the report.
“It was processed eight weeks ago.”
“I never agreed to this test.”
“Your father may have used blood collected during routine prenatal screening.”
Emily opened the cassette.
Charles’s voice emerged.
“The embryo implanted in Emily was not the embryo she and Preston selected.”
Emily froze.
“The clinic records were altered. Preston knew.”
The tape clicked.
Then another man spoke.
A voice Emily had not heard in twelve years.
“Emily, I am sorry. They told you I was dead.”
Her older brother Nathan had supposedly died in a boating accident.
No body was ever found.
Emily stared at the recorder.
“That was Nathan.”
Before anyone could answer, the bank manager entered.
“There is a man in the lobby asking for Mrs. Bennett.”
He held up a security photograph.
The man had Nathan’s face.
May you like
But Preston stood behind him.
Holding a gun against his back.
