Chapter 13 - Anna’s Last Secret
James read Catherine’s note until the words blurred.
Anna had entered Melissa’s hospital room eight years before her death.
But James remembered Anna arriving the morning after Sarah’s birth.
He had seen her in the lobby carrying flowers.
At least, he thought he had.
“Could Anna have been at the hospital during the delivery?” Detective Ortiz asked.
James searched his memory.
Melissa had gone into labor shortly after midnight.
James had called Anna, but she did not answer.
At 4:00 a.m., he sent a message saying the baby had arrived.
Anna responded at 6:12 a.m.
Congratulations. I am on my way.
“What if she was already there?” Margaret asked.
“Why would she lie?”
“Because she was investigating the Mercer Foundation.”
They returned to Anna’s storage unit with federal technicians.
The damaged recorder contained more data than they had initially recovered. A specialist reconstructed several additional sections.
Anna’s voice played through a secure laptop.
“I followed Diane to St. Catherine’s because she met Victor behind the maternity ward. I believed they were transferring foundation funds through the hospital.”
A pause followed.
“I entered the building using a staff entrance. Victor was inside the nursery with three infants. Diane was holding identification bands.”
James gripped the edge of the desk.
Anna continued.
“Eleanor Ashcroft was hiding in room 616. She had not given birth. The medical records were created to conceal her presence.”
That confirmed Diane’s claim.
“Then who delivered the third baby?” Ortiz whispered.
The recording continued.
“I entered Melissa’s room through the connecting bathroom. A woman was standing beside her bed. I thought she was a nurse. When she turned, I recognized her from the Ashcroft investigation.”
Static swallowed the next sentence.
The technician adjusted the audio.
“She was Victor Dane’s sister.”
James looked toward Margaret.
“Victor has a sister?”
“Not according to any public record.”
Anna’s voice returned.
“The woman had switched places with Eleanor. She used Eleanor’s false identity to give birth. Victor intended to hide the baby inside another family.”
A chair moved in the original recording.
“I tried to stop her. She told me the child would be killed if the Ashcroft trustees learned she existed.”
More static.
“I moved one bracelet. Diane moved another. Then Victor entered.”
The recovered audio ended.
James looked at the nursery photograph again.
Three babies.
Melissa’s child.
Laura Bennett’s child.
The child born to Victor’s sister under Eleanor’s false name.
“Why would Victor hide his own niece?” Ethan asked.
“Maybe the child had a claim to the Ashcroft estate,” Margaret said.
“How?”
“If Victor’s sister was connected to the Ashcroft family.”
The technician found another fragment.
Anna’s voice was faint.
“The woman’s real name was Helena Dane. She claimed Charles Ashcroft was the child’s father.”
The room fell silent.
Charles Ashcroft had been in his seventies when Sarah was born.
“If Helena’s baby was Charles Ashcroft’s daughter,” Margaret said, “the child would be Eleanor’s half-sister and a direct heir.”
“Victor wanted to control the inheritance,” James said.
“Or protect the child until he could.”
“Which baby was Helena’s?”
“We still don’t know.”
Detective Ortiz studied the files.
“Anna believed Sarah was connected.”
“She created the trust for Sarah.”
“She may have believed Sarah was Helena’s child.”
James looked at the photograph of his daughter.
Nothing about her identity could change the nights he had carried her through fevers, helped her learn to ride a bicycle, or listened to her read the same story until she memorized every page.
But someone had built eight years of deception around her birth.
“Where is the third bracelet?” he asked.
No one knew.
The federal investigators searched Diane’s hidden office again.
Behind a removable wall panel, they found a small safe.
Diane refused to provide the combination.
Technicians opened it.
Inside were passports under different names, photographs of Victor and Helena, and a sealed envelope from St. Catherine’s Hospital.
The envelope contained a laboratory report.
It compared genetic samples from three baby girls.
Most of the identifying information had been removed.
The conclusion remained.
Infant A was biologically related to Melissa Walker.
Infant B was biologically related to Laura Bennett.
Infant C was biologically related to Charles Ashcroft.
The report did not state which infant had gone home with which mother.
A handwritten note had been added.
Diane has Infant C.
James felt the blood drain from his face.
“Diane believed she raised Charles Ashcroft’s child,” he said.
Margaret nodded.
“Melissa.”
The implication was enormous.
If Diane had taken Helena’s baby and raised her as Melissa, then Melissa was not Diane’s daughter.
It also meant the hospital scheme had begun long before Sarah’s birth.
Detective Ortiz examined the date on the report.
“This test was performed thirty-two years ago.”
Melissa was thirty-five.
“It cannot be about Sarah’s birth,” James said.
“No,” Margaret replied. “It is about Melissa’s.”
The room seemed to contract around them.
Diane had not simply targeted Melissa.
She had stolen or hidden her as an infant.
And if Melissa was Charles Ashcroft’s daughter, she could be the missing heir to his estate.
James looked at the files surrounding him.
“Then why did everything happen again when Sarah was born?”
Margaret opened the final envelope from the safe.
Inside was a photograph of three young women standing outside St. Catherine’s Hospital thirty-five years earlier.
Diane.
May you like
Helena Dane.
And James’s mother.
