Chapter 8 - The Lie Inside the Truth
No one slept after Evelyn’s arrest.
The house by the lake turned into a temporary command center. Police moved through the rooms photographing broken glass. Agent Cole made calls in a low voice. Detective Harris guarded Evelyn’s men in the kitchen until transport arrived.
Thomas sat alone by the fireplace, staring at nothing.
Marcus stood outside on the porch, watching the tree line.
I stood between them, wondering which man had lied less.
That was what my life had become.
Not who told the truth.
Who lied less.
At dawn, Agent Cole brought coffee I could not drink and a folder I did not want.
“We recovered digital files from the flash drive,” she said.
“Already?”
“Your mother organized everything clearly.”
Of course she had.
My mother used to label leftovers with dates and tiny hearts.
Agent Cole placed the folder on the table.
“Most of it concerns shell clinics, forged foundation grants, and payments routed through Peter Monroe. There is also a medical file.”
The air changed.
Thomas stood.
Marcus came in from the porch.
Agent Cole looked at me. “You should decide whether you want to read it now.”
“I want the truth now.”
She opened the folder.
The first page was a birth certificate.
My birth certificate.
But not the one I had seen growing up.
This one listed my name as Elena Anna Ashford.
Father: Thomas James Ashford.
Mother: Anna Claire Monroe.
I stared until the letters blurred.
“Then Evelyn lied,” Thomas whispered.
Agent Cole turned another page.
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
The second document was a paternity report.
Old. Folded. Water-damaged at the edges.
Thomas’s hands shook as he reached for it.
I read before he touched it.
Probability of paternity: 0.00%.
The room fell away.
Thomas gripped the back of a chair.
Marcus looked at the floor.
I laughed once.
It sounded nothing like me.
“So I’m nobody’s daughter.”
Thomas looked up sharply. “No.”
“That’s what the paper says.”
“It says one test excluded me. It does not say you are nobody.”
Agent Cole’s voice was careful. “There are signs this report may have been altered.”
I looked at her. “Signs?”
“The lab listed on the report did not exist under that name until three years after your birth.”
Marcus stepped closer. “Evelyn planted a false result.”
“Or my mother did,” I said.
Thomas looked wounded.
I hated that I cared.
“Your mother would never—”
“You don’t know what desperate people do.”
The words hit him. He absorbed them.
Again, no defense.
That made it harder to hate him.
Agent Cole continued. “There’s more.”
Of course there was.
The next file was a photograph of a hospital nursery.
Three babies.
My chest tightened.
“Why are there three?”
Agent Cole placed another page on the table.
“Anna’s letter mentions a second child.”
My vision narrowed.
“A what?”
Marcus’s head lifted.
He had not known either.
Agent Cole read from my mother’s scanned notes.
“If they find Elena, they will use her. If they find the boy, they will erase him. I separated them because keeping them together made them easier to kill.”
The boy.
The room became soundless.
I gripped the table.
“I have a brother?”
Thomas sat down hard.
Marcus moved toward me. “Elena.”
I stepped back.
“No. Don’t.”
Agent Cole turned another page.
“The boy was registered under a sealed emergency placement. We don’t have a name yet. The records were routed through a clinic connected to the Blackwood foundation.”
“A shell clinic,” Thomas said.
Agent Cole nodded.
“Could he be alive?” I asked.
“Yes.”
One word.
The world rearranged itself around it.
A brother.
A twin? Younger? Older by minutes? A baby my mother hid because the Blackwoods hunted bloodlines like property deeds.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked Marcus.
“I didn’t know.”
“Evelyn said to ask why you were really at Bellefleur Manor.”
He looked at Agent Cole.
She said nothing.
Marcus exhaled.
“I wasn’t only hired to watch Evelyn.”
“What else?”
“I was looking for your brother.”
The answer landed like a slap.
“At my sister’s wedding?”
“We had reason to believe someone connected to the Blackwoods would attend under an alias.”
“Who?”
Marcus hesitated.
Then he pulled a photo from his jacket and placed it on the table.
It showed a man about my age in a black catering uniform, carrying a tray through Bellefleur Manor’s service entrance.
Sharp jaw. Dark hair. Eyes like mine.
The room tilted.
“He was there,” Marcus said. “Working the wedding.”
My mouth went dry.
“Where is he now?”
“Missing.”
Thomas whispered, “My God.”
Agent Cole checked her phone.
“His employee file lists him as Daniel Reyes. Temporary catering staff. No permanent address.”
Reyes.
The name tugged at a memory.
“Rosa,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
“The server who raised her hand. Her last name was Delgado, but she called someone Danny near the kitchen. I heard it before the ceremony.”
Marcus was already moving.
“We need to find Rosa.”
But Agent Cole lifted her phone.
“I just received an update from county police.”
Her expression changed in a way I had come to fear.
“What?” I asked.
“The catering company’s van was found abandoned twelve miles from Bellefleur Manor.”
“And Daniel?”
She looked at me.
“Blood in the driver’s seat. No body.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
I sat down before my legs failed.
In twenty-four hours, I had lost a fiancé, gained a possible father, learned my mother was murdered, watched my sister betray me on national television, and discovered I might have a brother who had been standing thirty feet away when I nearly died.
And now he was gone.
On the table, my mother’s scanned handwriting stared up at me.
If they find the boy, they will erase him.
Evelyn had not come back from Geneva.
May you like
She had never left.
Because she had not finished cleaning up my mother’s children.
