CHAPTER 12 — TWO CLAIRES
The passport was authentic.
It had been issued when Vanessa was six years old.
Claire’s own childhood passport had been created three years later, shortly after her mysterious hospitalization.
Both documents listed Helen Carter as the mother.
Neither woman knew which identity had originally belonged to her.
Vanessa remembered living in a small house with a woman she called Aunt Helen. Then Marcus arrived and told her that her mother had died.
Claire remembered almost nothing before age nine.
Ethan replayed the hospital tape.
Daniel’s warning suggested one of the girls was connected to David Blackwood.
But it did not reveal which one.
Claire feared her marriage had been built on an identity manufactured by Helen and Evelyn.
Vanessa feared that Marcus had raised her only because he needed control of Daniel’s hidden daughter.
They agreed to take another DNA test using separate laboratories.
Before the samples could be processed, Dr. Ortiz called.
Someone had accessed Claire’s prenatal records.
The intruder had downloaded fetal DNA results.
Hours later, Margaret Blackwood disappeared from the family estate.
Her guards found the windows open and a single pearl bracelet on the floor.
There were no signs that she had been forced to leave.
Ethan checked the estate’s security footage.
At 2:13 a.m., Margaret walked calmly to a waiting car.
The driver was Patient D.
The man believed to be Daniel.
Or David.
Claire received an encrypted video soon afterward.
It showed Margaret sitting across from the man inside an unknown room.
“You should have stayed dead,” Margaret said.
The man smiled.
“So should you.”
Claire froze the image.
On the wall behind them was the number 913.
Vanessa traced the transmission to a hotel near the Canadian border.
Ethan prepared to leave immediately.
Claire stopped him.
“There is one more thing.”
She showed him a recovered email Helen had written years earlier.
The subject line was:
When Ethan meets Claire, do not let them fall in love.
Ethan read the first sentence.
Their child would unite both Blackwood bloodlines and expose which brother survived.
He looked at Claire’s stomach.
Their unborn baby was not merely an heir.
The child’s DNA could reveal the identity of Patient D.
But the remaining pages of the email were encrypted.
Before Adrian could open them, Claire’s phone rang.
A man spoke in Daniel’s voice.
“Bring the two women who call themselves Claire.”
“Where?”
“Room 913.”
“And Ethan?”
The man paused.
“Ethan must never enter that room.”
May you like
Claire looked up.
Ethan had heard every word.
