Chapter 7 - Richard’s Real Reason)
The DNA results arrived the next morning.
Detective Bennett insisted on delivering them in person.
Claire sat beside Daniel.
The envelope remained unopened for several seconds.
“No matter what it says,” Claire whispered, “Emma is our daughter.”
Daniel nodded.
Bennett opened the report.
“Emma is biologically related to both of you.”
Claire burst into tears.
Daniel covered his face.
Relief came first.
Then confusion.
If Emma was their biological daughter, there had been no successful switch.
So why had Richard kept the hospital article?
Why had Dr. Keene confessed to switching babies?
Bennett turned the page.
“There’s more.”
Daniel lowered his hands.
“We obtained a voluntary sample from Anna.”
Claire leaned forward.
“Where is she?”
“She and Margaret were found this morning.”
“Are they safe?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I can’t disclose that yet.”
Bennett continued.
“Anna is not biologically related to Margaret Hale.”
Daniel stared.
“What?”
“And she is not biologically related to Michael Pierce.”
Claire felt the room shift.
“Then who is she?”
“We’re still testing.”
Daniel stood.
“So Samuel did switch babies.”
“Possibly. Just not the way everyone assumed.”
Bennett placed another document down.
“We also confirmed something about the handwritten confession.”
“It wasn’t Samuel’s handwriting?”
“It was.”
Daniel stared.
“So he really wrote it.”
“Yes.”
The sentence took on a new meaning.
I switched the wrong child.
Not I switched two children.
Not I switched Claire’s baby.
The wrong child.
Bennett explained that St. Anne’s had three female infants in the neonatal unit during the system outage.
Emma Pierce.
Anna Hale.
And a third infant.
Her name was Grace Turner.
Grace had been born premature.
Her mother, Rebecca Turner, died from complications two days later.
Grace was discharged into foster care because no father was listed.
Three months later, she was adopted.
Claire whispered, “Where is she now?”
Bennett looked at Daniel.
“Her adoptive parents renamed her Lily.”
Daniel froze.
“What?”
“Lily Morgan.”
The name meant nothing to Claire.
But Daniel had gone pale.
“I know that name.”
Claire turned.
“How?”
Daniel stared at Bennett.
“Lily Morgan is in Emma’s class.”
Claire stopped breathing.
Of the twenty-two children in Emma’s fourth-grade classroom, Lily Morgan sat two seats behind her.
She had attended Emma’s birthday party in September.
She had slept in their house.
Claire remembered her.
Brown hair.
Quiet voice.
A tiny crescent-shaped birthmark near her left ear.
Bennett continued.
“Richard had photographs of Lily too.”
Daniel gripped the edge of the table.
“Why?”
“We don’t know.”
Claire thought of Richard’s message.
SHE SHOULD HAVE BEEN MINE.
Maybe it had never referred to Emma.
Maybe it referred to someone else.
Bennett’s phone rang.
She answered.
Her expression tightened.
“When?”
She listened.
“Lock the school immediately.”
Claire shot to her feet.
“What happened?”
May you like
Bennett ended the call.
“Lily Morgan is missing.”
