Chapter 9 - The Child Richard Chose)
At 3:40 p.m., police found Richard’s hidden storage unit.
The lease was registered under a false name.
Inside were fourteen plastic bins.
Every bin was labeled with a year.
Year One.
Year Two.
Year Three.
Daniel stood outside while investigators photographed the contents.
He was not allowed inside.
Bennett brought him selected photographs later.
The earliest files contained hospital records.
Then pediatric reports.
Then school photographs.
Emma.
Anna.
Lily.
Three girls born within the same forty-three-minute window.
Richard had followed all of them.
One folder was thicker than the others.
LILY MORGAN.
Claire looked at Daniel.
“He knew.”
Daniel turned pages.
Richard had obtained Lily’s medical records illegally.
Allergy information.
Blood type.
Dental X-rays.
School assessments.
Photographs of her adoptive parents.
Then Daniel saw a document that made his hands stop.
PATERNITY PROBABILITY ANALYSIS.
The report was eight years old.
It compared genetic data from Lily with Richard Pierce.
The probability of a direct grandparent relationship was greater than ninety-nine percent.
Daniel stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Bennett said, “We reran the test independently.”
Daniel looked up.
“Lily is your biological daughter.”
Claire went completely still.
Daniel could not understand the words.
“No.”
“Daniel.”
“No.”
Claire whispered his name.
“Daniel.”
He stepped backward.
“Emma is my daughter.”
“She is,” Bennett said.
“You just told us the DNA confirmed it.”
“Yes.”
“Then how can Lily also be my daughter?”
Bennett placed another report on the table.
“We tested stored biological material from your brother Michael.”
Daniel stared at her.
“Where did you get that?”
“A tissue sample preserved from his autopsy.”
“And?”
“Lily is not Michael’s daughter.”
Daniel’s voice dropped.
“So you’re telling me I have two biological daughters born on the same night to two different women?”
Nobody answered.
Claire suddenly understood.
She looked at Margaret’s photograph.
Then at Daniel.
His face changed.
“No.”
Claire’s eyes filled with disbelief.
“Daniel.”
“No.”
“Did you know Margaret before Emma was born?”
“No.”
“Think.”
“I said no.”
Bennett spoke carefully.
“Margaret Hale worked at the Weston Conference Center nine years ago.”
Daniel’s face lost all color.
Claire noticed.
“What?”
He sank into a chair.
Nine months before Emma’s birth, Daniel had attended a three-day corporate retreat at the Weston Conference Center.
Claire remembered.
They had been married three years.
They had been trying for a child.
Daniel had come home exhausted.
He had never mentioned anything unusual.
Now his hands were shaking.
Claire whispered, “What happened there?”
Daniel stared at the floor.
“One night I drank too much.”
Claire’s breathing changed.
“No.”
“I woke up in my hotel room.”
“Alone?”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“No.”
Claire backed away.
“Who was there?”
“I didn’t know her name.”
Bennett placed Margaret’s employee photograph on the table.
Daniel looked at it.
His silence answered.
Claire walked out of the room.
Daniel followed.
“Claire.”
“Don’t.”
“I never remembered everything.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“I woke up confused. She was there. I panicked.”
Claire turned.
“And you never told me?”
“I was ashamed.”
“You let me spend nine years believing we had never had secrets like that.”
“I know.”
“No, Daniel. You don’t get to say that anymore.”
Upstairs, Emma called for her mother.
Claire immediately wiped her face.
That mattered more.
She went to her daughter.
Daniel remained alone in the hallway.
His phone vibrated.
A text message appeared from an unknown number.
A photograph loaded.
Lily sat tied to a chair inside an unfamiliar room.
She looked terrified.
May you like
Beneath the image were six words.
COME GET YOUR OTHER DAUGHTER, DANNY.
