Chapter 28: The Second Infant
The photograph had been taken on the night Noah was born.
One infant had a blue blanket.
The other had a white blanket.
Both bracelets displayed my name.
ELENA CROSS.
I remembered the delivery room.
The confusion.
Margaret entering without permission.
Adrian arguing with a doctor.
The medication that made me lose hours of memory.
I had always believed Noah had remained beside me.
Now I could not remember seeing his bracelet placed on his wrist.
Judge Voss ordered the courthouse sealed.
Detective Ellis searched for Jonathan Vale.
He had escaped through a service elevator.
The independent doctor collected samples from Noah, me, and Adrian’s stored criminal evidence profile.
The preliminary results arrived that evening.
Noah was my biological son.
But Adrian was not his biological father.
I read the report three times.
“This is impossible.”
Claire stood beside me.
“Could the sample have been altered?”
“Ellis supervised everything.”
“Then Adrian may not have known.”
“He was there when Noah was born.”
My mother entered the room.
She had been studying the Aster financial records.
“There were fertility clinics connected to Thomas,” she said.
I stared at her.
“No.”
“Elena—”
“No one is going to tell me my child was designed for a trust.”
Noah reached for my necklace.
He was real.
His laugh was real.
His need for me was real.
Whatever they had done could not change that.
Detective Ellis returned with another report.
“The second infant in the photograph was registered under a false name.”
“Where is he?”
“We do not know.”
“Who was his mother?”
“The file lists you.”
My body went cold.
“I gave birth to one child.”
“The hospital records say one.”
“Then someone falsified the second registration.”
Claire examined the document.
“The second infant may have been used as a substitute succession candidate.”
“For what purpose?”
“If one child failed genetic verification, they had another.”
Mara called from the center.
She had decrypted part of the memory card.
The trust had paid a private pediatric facility every month for eleven months.
A child identified only as Subject B had received treatment there.
The most recent payment had been made three days earlier.
We drove to the facility.
The building was empty.
Medication remained in the refrigerator.
A crib stood in the examination room.
A camera had been mounted above it.
On the wall hung recent photographs of Noah.
Beside them were photographs of another baby.
The resemblance was unmistakable.
Same dark hair.
Same eyes.
A nurse’s note lay on the counter.
SUBJECT B RESPONDS TO NAME NICHOLAS.
TRANSFER APPROVED BEFORE SUCCESSION HEARING.
A vehicle engine started outside.
Detective Ellis ran toward the exit.
We reached the parking lot in time to see a black van disappear through the gate.
Something had been left on the pavement.
A white baby blanket.
Inside it was a prison identification bracelet.
May you like
ADRIAN CROSS.
There was blood on the clasp.
