Chapter 8 - The Child in the Hospital Record
Grant stared at Claire.
"What do you mean?"
Vanessa was still frozen near the desk.
Charles kicked the pistol farther away.
Claire wiped tears from her face.
"Elizabeth gave birth to twins."
Vanessa looked up sharply.
"You're lying."
"I'm not."
"Mom said."
"Mom lied."
Vanessa stepped toward her sister.
"Mom said I was Elizabeth's daughter."
"You are."
"She never said anything about twins."
"Because the second baby disappeared."
Grant felt his heart pounding.
"How?"
Claire sat.
"Elizabeth went into labor early. Mom could not take her to a hospital under her real name, so she used a private clinic. Two girls were born."
Charles whispered, "Where?"
"Outside Albany."
"What happened?"
"One baby was healthy. Vanessa."
Claire looked at her sister.
"The other needed surgery."
Vanessa stared.
"Name."
"What?"
"What was her name?"
Claire's voice softened.
"Elizabeth called you Victoria and Violet."
Vanessa looked as if she had been struck.
"My name was Victoria?"
"For six days."
Grant remembered the trust document.
Beneficiary initial V.
Not one child.
Two names beginning with V.
Claire continued.
"The second twin was transferred to a hospital. Mom panicked. She couldn't control the records anymore."
"What did she do?" Grant asked.
"She abandoned the second child."
Vanessa whispered, "No."
"She took you and disappeared."
"What happened to Violet?"
"I don't know."
Grant immediately thought like a father.
A premature infant.
Hospital records.
Adoption.
There might still be a trail.
Claire opened her handbag.
"I found this four months ago."
She handed Grant a photocopy.
Albany Children's Hospital.
Female infant.
Approximate birth date matching Vanessa's.
Mother listed under an alias.
Emergency cardiac procedure.
Patient later transferred into temporary state custody.
Grant looked at Vanessa.
She stared at the paper.
All anger had disappeared.
For the first time, she looked like someone whose identity had been shattered rather than a manipulator protecting money.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Claire laughed sadly.
"I tried."
"When?"
"Four months ago."
Vanessa's face changed.
Grant remembered Thomas saying Claire disappeared four months earlier.
Claire continued.
"You told me never to contact you again."
"Because you were blackmailing me."
"I asked you to help me find our sister."
"You asked for money."
"For investigators."
"You threatened to expose me."
"Because you refused to stop using Elizabeth's identity."
Vanessa looked away.
Grant understood something uncomfortable.
Vanessa had done terrible things.
But she had also been raised inside a manufactured identity by a mother who had taught her that survival depended on possession.
That explained her.
It did not excuse her.
Especially not Lily.
Grant looked at the hospital record again.
"Elizabeth. What happened to her?"
Claire became quiet.
"After the twins were born, she became sick."
"From childbirth?"
"Partly."
Charles looked afraid to ask.
"Did she die?"
Claire nodded.
"Three weeks later."
Charles covered his face.
Claire continued.
"Mom buried her under another name."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
Vanessa suddenly laughed.
Everyone turned.
"Of course."
She was crying now.
"Of course Mom lied about that too."
Claire looked at her.
"What did she tell you?"
"That Elizabeth abandoned me."
Grant closed his eyes.
There it was.
The origin of Vanessa's rage.
"She told you your mother left voluntarily?"
Vanessa nodded.
"She said Elizabeth cared more about exposing the Whitmores than keeping her own daughter."
Claire shook her head.
"That's not true."
"You don't know."
"I was there."
Vanessa stared.
Claire continued.
"Elizabeth held you every day."
Vanessa's breathing broke.
"Stop."
"She sang to you."
"Stop."
"She made me promise that if anything happened to her, I would tell you she loved you."
Vanessa covered her ears.
"Stop."
Claire stood.
"I was sixteen. I was terrified. Mom controlled everything. I failed you."
Vanessa turned away.
Grant watched her shoulders shake.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
Then Charles turned the cassette player back on.
Elizabeth's voice filled the room again.
"The person helping him is someone close to me. Someone who believes protecting the Whitmore name matters more than protecting people."
Static.
Then Elizabeth continued.
"Eleanor knows about the accounts. She begged me not to expose them, but I don't believe she will hurt me. Marianne says she has a plan to get Thomas and me out safely."
Claire looked at the recorder.
Grant felt cold.
Elizabeth trusted Marianne.
The recording continued.
"If our daughter is born before this is over, Thomas should have the pendant. The trust key is inside. Everything goes to our child, or equally to our children if there is more than one."
Grant looked at Vanessa.
She slowly lowered her hands.
The tape crackled.
Then Elizabeth laughed softly.
"Thomas keeps saying twins run in his family."
Charles began crying.
A final sentence followed.
"If my children ever hear this, none of the money matters. I only want them to know they were wanted."
Vanessa sank into a chair.
For the first time since Grant had known her, she had no performance left.
No controlled expression.
No elegant posture.
No manipulation.
She simply cried.
Claire knelt beside her.
Vanessa did not embrace her.
But she did not push her away.
Grant turned to Charles.
"We find Violet."
Charles nodded.
Grant looked at the ledgers.
"And we expose everything."
Charles hesitated.
"Our family."
"Already survived the truth once."
Grant's voice hardened.
"It can survive it again."
Then Grant's phone rang.
Rachel.
He answered.
"Grant?"
Her voice sounded worried.
"What happened?"
"It's Lily."
Grant's heart stopped.
"What's wrong?"
"She's fine. But someone came to the apartment asking for Vanessa."
"Who?"
Rachel paused.
"A woman."
Grant looked at Claire.
"What woman?"
"She says her name is Valerie Hale."
Thomas's surname.
Grant felt a chill.
May you like
Rachel continued.
"She says she's Vanessa's twin sister."
