Chapter 9 - The Blood Test
Daniel refused to believe the accusation.
“Julian is lying.”
Rachel remained silent on the phone.
“Tell me where he took them.”
“You cannot save the boys until you understand why they were born.”
“I don’t care why they were born.”
“You will.”
“Where are they?”
“The old Saint Catherine’s clinic.”
The call ended.
The clinic had closed after the fire twenty-eight years earlier. Public records listed the land as abandoned marshland north of Salem.
Daniel, Elena, Marcus, and a tactical team reached it after midnight.
The main building stood behind rusted gates. Ivy covered the brick walls. Most windows were broken.
No vehicles were visible.
The team entered through three points.
Daniel ignored instructions to remain behind.
Inside, the air smelled of mold and antiseptic.
Children’s drawings still hung in one corridor.
Four stick-figure boys stood beneath a yellow sun.
Their faces had been scratched away.
“Movement ahead,” Marcus whispered.
They followed a faint light into an operating theater.
Two small beds stood beneath surgical lamps.
Ethan and Noah lay unconscious.
Daniel ran to them.
“Ethan. Noah.”
Elena checked their breathing.
“They’re alive.”
A doctor emerged from behind a plastic curtain.
Daniel recognized him from Julian’s charity events.
Dr. Adrian Cross served on the Whitmore Foundation board.
Marcus aimed his weapon.
“Hands where we can see them.”
Cross raised both hands.
“You are too late.”
Daniel seized him by the collar.
“What did you do to them?”
“Only blood samples.”
“Why?”
“To determine which children they are.”
Daniel slammed him against the wall.
“They are my sons.”
Cross looked almost sympathetic.
“That depends on the meaning of the word.”
Marcus restrained Daniel before he could strike again.
Elena pulled the IV lines from the boys’ arms.
“What did the tests show?”
Cross smiled.
“Ethan and Noah are biological brothers.”
Daniel waited.
“But they are not twins.”
The room became completely silent.
Cross continued.
“Ethan was born to the surrogate listed in Amelia’s file. Noah was born three weeks earlier to another woman.”
“That is impossible,” Daniel said.
“Birth records are easier to manipulate than genetics.”
“Who are their parents?”
Cross looked toward Elena.
“One boy is Amelia’s biological child.”
“And the other?”
“Robert Whitmore’s.”
Elena stepped back.
Robert was her father.
Daniel’s uncle.
A man dead for decades before Noah’s birth.
Cross saw the disbelief.
“Saint Catherine’s stored reproductive material from wealthy clients for years. Robert Whitmore funded the original program.”
Daniel looked at Noah.
“If Robert was the donor, Noah is Amelia’s half-brother.”
“Or Elena’s.”
Elena stared at the sleeping child.
“No.”
“We needed her DNA to confirm it,” Cross said.
Daniel moved between them.
“You are not touching her.”
Cross laughed softly.
“You still do not understand. Amelia already tested Elena.”
Elena remembered the last gift Amelia mailed her, a silver necklace with a sharp clasp.
She had cut her finger opening it.
A spot of blood had stained the velvet box.
“She took my blood.”
“She needed to know whether the baby she brought home was your brother.”
Elena’s face twisted.
“Why would she agree to this?”
“She did not.”
A door opened above them.
Julian stood in the observation gallery.
He wore a navy coat and held a pistol.
“Amelia never agreed to any of it,” he said.
Daniel looked up.
“Come down.”
Julian smiled.
“You always did think commanding people was the same as leading them.”
“Why did you take my sons?”
“To protect mine.”
“Which one is yours?”
“I don’t know.”
Julian looked at the unconscious boys.
“That is the problem.”
Tactical officers moved toward the stairs.
Julian raised a remote control.
Cross shouted, “Don’t!”
Julian pressed the button.
Steel shutters dropped over every exit.
A red light began flashing.
Marcus checked the control panel.
“He armed the building’s incineration system.”
Julian’s voice came through the intercom.
“My father designed Saint Catherine’s to destroy evidence.”
“Robert?” Elena asked.
Julian shook his head.
“No.”
Daniel stared upward.
Julian’s father was not Robert Whitmore.
His father was Charles.
Daniel’s father.
The man who had controlled the family until his death.
Julian smiled.
“Your father built this place, Daniel.”
May you like
A mechanical hum began beneath the floor.
“And Amelia died because she found out what he created here.”
