CHAPTER 15 — ELAINE WAKES UP
Elaine woke in the intensive care unit.
Her ribs were fractured, her left arm was broken, and stitches crossed her forehead.
A police detective sat beside her.
“Do you remember the crash?”
“My brakes failed.”
“We confirmed the brake line was cut.”
Elaine closed her eyes.
“My memory card?”
“Safe.”
She relaxed slightly.
Then she remembered something.
“There was another camera.”
The detective leaned closer.
“What camera?”
“At the gala. The event photographer placed a miniature camera near the private elevators.”
“Why?”
“To capture celebrities arriving without disturbing them.”
“Did it record Evelyn Thorne?”
Elaine shook her head.
“It recorded the woman with the veil.”
The footage was recovered from the photographer’s equipment.
A woman wearing a black evening gown and silver veil entered the private elevator shortly before the attack.
Her face was hidden.
But as the doors closed, she removed one glove.
A white scar crossed her hand.
She carried a hospital access badge belonging to a woman named Dr. Lillian Vale.
Gabriel’s staff searched the name.
Dr. Vale had worked at the hospital nineteen years earlier.
She had signed Celeste Cole’s death certificate.
She had disappeared the next day.
Khloe listened from her secured room.
“Find her.”
A detective looked uncomfortable.
“We did.”
“Where?”
“According to federal records, Lillian Vale died twelve years ago.”
Khloe stared at the paused image.
The woman in the elevator was not elderly.
She appeared to be in her forties.
The age Celeste would have been when she supposedly died.
Dr. Reed entered suddenly.
“Khloe, we have another problem.”
She held a laboratory report.
The drug in the abandoned syringe contained a rare chemical marker.
It came from one place.
May you like
The private Thorne fertility clinic.
The same clinic that had produced the false paternity report.
