Chapter 11 - Juliette Finally Told the Truth)
Police searched the woods until sunrise.
They found tire tracks.
A discarded jacket.
And traces of blood on a branch, although nobody could determine whose.
Rachel was gone.
Christopher returned to the mansion with more questions than before.
But one thing had changed.
He had seen her.
She was alive.
That truth could not be taken away.
At 10:00 a.m., the DNA laboratory called.
The results involving Thomas Whitmore were complete.
Evelyn joined Christopher and Cole in the library.
Thomas Whitmore was Christopher's biological father.
Christopher felt relief first.
Then confusion.
"Then what's the paternal discrepancy?"
Cole looked at the report.
"Maybe not yours."
Christopher stared.
The clinic file had been labeled Subject C.
They assumed C meant Christopher.
Maybe it didn't.
Cole requested copies of every surviving file.
The answer appeared in a handwritten index.
Subject A: Thomas Whitmore.
Subject B: Grant Mercer.
Subject C: Charles Whitmore.
Christopher frowned.
"Charles?"
Margaret went silent.
Christopher looked at her.
"Who is Charles?"
She closed her eyes.
"My brother."
Christopher felt a strange pressure behind his eyes.
"Victor Hale was your brother."
"I had two."
"Why hasn't anyone mentioned Charles?"
"Because he disappeared."
"When?"
"Thirty seven years ago."
Christopher did the math.
Just before Grant's birth.
Margaret looked at him.
"No."
"What?"
She had gone white.
Christopher understood.
"You think Charles could be Grant's father."
Margaret stood abruptly.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because Charles was seventeen."
Silence.
Christopher stared at her.
Margaret covered her face.
"No."
The family secret became uglier.
If Grant was not the son of Christopher's grandfather, he might instead be the son of Margaret's own brother.
But that still did not explain decades of surveillance.
Or Rachel.
Or the clinic.
They needed Grant.
And Juliette knew more than she had admitted.
Christopher agreed to one controlled conversation.
Not because he wanted to see her.
Because he wanted Rachel back.
Juliette entered the interview room wearing county clothing instead of the evening gown Christopher remembered beside the pool.
Without makeup and composure, she seemed smaller.
Christopher felt nothing for her.
She looked at him.
"How is Emma?"
"Don't say her name."
Juliette lowered her eyes.
Christopher placed Rachel's photograph on the table.
"Where is she?"
Juliette stared at it.
"I don't know."
"Grant told you."
"He told me pieces."
"What pieces?"
"That Rachel survived."
Christopher leaned forward.
"When did you know?"
"Before our wedding."
He felt something inside him harden permanently.
"You married me knowing my wife was alive."
Juliette whispered, "I didn't know if it was true."
"You saw photographs."
"Grant could fake things."
"You never told me."
"No."
"You slept beside me."
Tears filled her eyes.
Christopher felt no pity.
"You let Emma call you family."
Juliette began crying.
"I didn't plan the pool."
"You pushed her."
"I know."
"Look at me."
She did.
"You put your hands on my daughter and pushed her into water."
Juliette's face crumpled.
"He told me if I didn't do it, he would."
"So you did it for him?"
"No."
"Then why?"
"He threatened my sister."
Christopher had not known Juliette had a sister.
"Where?"
"Arizona."
"Name?"
"Claire."
Cole wrote it down.
Juliette continued.
"He had photographs of her children. Their school. Their house."
Christopher's anger remained.
"You could have gone to police."
"I was afraid."
"Emma was five."
"I know."
"Being afraid doesn't make what you did disappear."
Juliette nodded slowly.
"I know."
That was the first honest thing Christopher believed she had said.
"Tell me where Rachel is."
"I can't."
"Then tell me about Grant."
Juliette looked toward the camera.
"He isn't the person in charge."
Christopher and Cole exchanged glances.
"Who is?"
"I never met him."
"Man or woman?"
"Man."
"Name?"
"Grant called him Doctor."
"Victor Hale?"
Juliette shook her head.
"He called him Doctor C."
Christopher thought of Charles.
"Charles Hale?"
"I don't know."
"Did Grant fear him?"
Juliette laughed bitterly.
"Grant feared him more than he feared prison."
"What does he want?"
Juliette leaned forward.
"Emma."
Christopher's hand tightened.
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"You're lying."
"I'm not."
"Then why did Grant order you to kill her?"
"He didn't."
Christopher froze.
"The messages say he did."
"The messages were not from Grant."
Cole leaned closer.
"The prepaid number?"
"Grant gave me the phone. But he wasn't always the person texting."
"How do you know?"
"Because sometimes Grant was standing beside me when messages arrived."
The room went silent.
Juliette continued.
"At first Grant told me Emma had to die. Later he changed his mind."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"When?"
"Two weeks ago."
"What did he say?"
Juliette's voice trembled.
"He said he'd been wrong about everything."
Christopher waited.
"He told me to take Emma and leave the mansion."
"Why didn't you?"
"I thought it was a trick."
"What happened next?"
"The Doctor called me."
"What did he say?"
Juliette looked sick.
"He said Grant had become sentimental."
"And?"
"He told me to finish the plan."
Christopher stared at her.
"So Grant might have been trying to protect Emma."
"At the end."
Christopher remembered the cereal.
The ring.
Grant entering the kitchen.
"What about the drugged food?"
Juliette shook her head.
"Grant wouldn't poison her."
"He was caught on camera."
"Did you see his face?"
Christopher stopped.
No.
They had seen clothing.
Build.
The ring.
Never his face.
"Someone wanted us to believe Grant was inside."
Juliette nodded.
Christopher thought of the altered prescriptions.
Dead identities.
Fake names.
Someone had spent years creating evidence that pointed wherever he wanted it to point.
"Where is Grant?"
Juliette looked down.
"He said if he disappeared, I should tell you one thing."
Christopher waited.
"Your father didn't fire Grant because he wanted the company."
May you like
"Why did he fire him?"
Juliette whispered, "Because Grant discovered the Whitmore children had been switched."
