Chapter 5 - The Husband With Three Faces
Julian disappeared before midnight.
Police found his tuxedo jacket in a hotel stairwell, his phone in a delivery truck, and a trail of blood leading to the river. No body was recovered. Victoria insisted her son had been kidnapped. Alistair believed the scene had been staged.
Eleanor believed Julian had planned every step.
At dawn, federal investigators arrived at Blackwood House. The forged medical certification, international loans, identity theft, and possible newborn abduction moved the case beyond local jurisdiction. Eleanor spent six hours answering questions while Maya played in a protected room upstairs with a child therapist.
The birth certificate from Julian’s office was expertly forged but based on real hospital data. Its serial number matched a blank certificate stolen from St. Catherine’s five years earlier.
The name Evelyn Rook led nowhere in public records.
Genevieve asked to speak with Eleanor alone.
They met in the conservatory under the watch of security cameras. Morning sunlight filled the glass room, making Genevieve’s silver gown look absurd after a night of fear.
“I know where Julian kept his other identities,” she said.
“Tell the investigators.”
“I did. They asked me to tell you too.”
Eleanor waited.
“There is an apartment above an old theater on West Twenty-Ninth Street. He took me there twice. He called himself Adrian Cole when we were inside.”
“Why?”
“I thought it was part of some tax arrangement.”
“You never asked why your lover needed another name?”
Genevieve looked ashamed. “I did not ask questions that might end the life I wanted.”
The honesty was ugly, but it was honesty.
“What was in the apartment?”
“Maps. Old photographs. Medical files. A wall covered with names.”
“Whose names?”
“Blackwood employees. Judges. bankers. Your mother.”
Eleanor’s breath caught.
“My mother died when I was twelve.”
“I saw her photograph.”
Federal agents searched the theater apartment that afternoon. Eleanor watched through a live briefing from Blackwood House.
The rooms had been cleared recently, but not completely. Behind a false wall, investigators found three passports bearing Julian’s photograph under different names: Julian Vance, Adrian Cole, and Nathan Rook.
The third identity was supported by a birth certificate showing Nathan Rook born thirty-six years earlier in Montreal.
His mother was listed as Evelyn Blackwood.
Alistair sat down when he saw it.
“My sister had a son.”
Eleanor looked at Julian’s face on the passport.
“My husband is your nephew.”
“If the document is real.”
“Did you know?”
“No.”
“Did Victoria?”
No one answered.
Investigators found an audio recorder hidden beneath the theater floor. Most files were corrupted. One survived.
A woman’s voice spoke first.
Eleanor recognized Victoria.
“You will marry her, gain her trust, and wait until she gives you a child.”
Julian answered, younger but unmistakable.
“And if she cannot?”
“Then we will give her one.”
The recording ended.
Eleanor left the room and vomited in the hallway.
Alistair followed, but she raised a hand.
“Do not tell me to stay calm.”
“I would not.”
“He married me because of a trust.”
“Yes.”
“He knew he was related to us.”
“Perhaps.”
“And Victoria planned Maya before Maya existed.”
Alistair’s face tightened. “We still do not know what happened at the hospital.”
Eleanor wiped her mouth and straightened.
“Then we find out.”
St. Catherine’s had closed two years earlier after bankruptcy. Its records were stored in a warehouse outside the city. Federal agents secured the building before sunset.
Among thousands of boxes, they found the neonatal ward logs from Maya’s birth night.
Three infants had been born within one hour.
One was Maya Blackwood.
One was a boy named Samuel Ortiz.
The third was a girl whose file had been removed.
Only the index card remained.
Female infant. Mother: Unknown. Temporary designation: Baby R.
A nurse’s handwritten note appeared beside the entry.
Transferred under authority of Dr. Simon Vale.
Destination: Meridian Research Center.
Naomi searched the name.
Meridian Research Center had never been registered as a medical facility.
Its address belonged to a rural estate owned by a Vance shell company.
The property had burned down four years earlier.
Eleanor studied photographs of the ruins.
A blackened sign lay in the grass near the gate.
Two letters were still visible.
B and R.
That evening, Maya’s preliminary DNA results arrived.
The test confirmed Eleanor was her biological mother.
Eleanor cried with relief.
Then Claire read the next line.
Julian Vance was not Maya’s biological father.
The report showed that Maya’s paternal DNA matched the Rook bloodline.
Alistair gripped the table.
“That is impossible. If Julian is Evelyn’s son, he carries Rook blood.”
Claire shook her head.
“The match pattern excludes Julian as the father but indicates a close paternal relative.”
Eleanor looked from the report to the forged birth certificate.
“Then who is her father?”
Before anyone answered, Marcus entered with news from the perimeter.
May you like
A man had approached the front gate carrying no weapon and asking to see Eleanor.
He looked exactly like Julian.
