Chapter 15 - The Second Voice
Claire sat at the dining-room table with Naomi and Detective Ruiz.
Dustin remained upstairs with Owen and Carla, unaware that Henry’s voice was traveling through the rooms below.
The recording had been made eleven years earlier.
Henry sounded tired.
“Bellweather House was never meant to make our family wealthy. It was meant to keep a promise.
“Edward Merritt stole from his workers, betrayed his sister, and disappeared before he could answer for what he did. Elena spent years trying to recover the missing money.
“She discovered that Edward was alive.
“She also discovered that he had been using another name.
“Gabriel.”
Claire looked at the photograph of Elena holding the baby.
The baby had not been Gabriel.
Gabriel had been the man Elena feared.
Henry continued.
“Elena believed Gabriel would come for her child. She asked Daniel, Thomas, and me to create a protective identity. We agreed because the child would never be safe under the Merritt name.”
Claire’s hands began trembling.
“The child was born after Elena died,” she whispered.
Naomi did not answer.
On the recording, Henry coughed.
“Claire, I know you will believe I had no right to make decisions about your life. You may hate me when you learn the rest.
“But there was no time.
“Daniel knew the truth. He agreed to protect the child as his own.
“You gave that child everything Elena prayed he would have.
“A name without fear.
“A home without debt.
“A mother who would never abandon him.”
Claire stopped the recording.
The room became painfully quiet.
Dustin was her biological son. She remembered carrying him, giving birth to him, and holding him.
Henry’s words did not make sense.
Unless there had been another child.
Unless the protected child was not Dustin.
Claire looked at Naomi.
“GM-17 cannot be Dustin.”
Naomi touched the unopened genetic report.
“There may be another explanation.”
Claire opened the envelope.
The report listed two newborn samples.
Baby A and Baby B.
Baby A was Claire’s biological child.
Baby B was Elena Merritt’s biological child.
A handwritten note appeared below the results.
The bracelets were exchanged before discharge.
Claire could barely understand the sentence.
“What does that mean?”
Naomi read the report again.
“It suggests two babies were present.”
“Where is the other one?”
A floorboard creaked in the hallway.
Dustin stood near the staircase.
He had heard enough to know they were discussing him.
“Mom?”
Claire immediately covered the report.
“Go back upstairs, sweetheart.”
“Is that Granddad’s voice?”
“Yes.”
“Was he talking about me?”
Claire rose from the table.
Before she could reach him, the doorbell rang.
The security camera showed a man standing on the porch.
He appeared to be in his early thirties. Rain covered his dark coat, and a crescent-shaped birthmark rested near his left eyebrow.
He held the missing pages from Henry’s black ledger.
Beside him stood a boy approximately Dustin’s age.
The boy wore a silver bracelet engraved with the same letters.
GM.
Ruiz approached the door without opening it.
“Identify yourself.”
The man looked directly into the camera.
“My name is Gabriel Merritt.”
Claire’s blood turned cold.
Henry’s recording had identified Gabriel as Edward Merritt’s hidden name. The man outside was far too young to be Edward.
Either he was lying, or Gabriel was a name passed from father to son.
The stranger placed one hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“I came for the identity record Henry Bennett stole.”
“This house is protected by police,” Ruiz said.
“I am not here to take the house.”
“Then why are you here?”
The man looked past the camera, as though he could see Claire standing inside.
“To return the child who was sent home with the wrong mother.”
Claire stepped toward the door.
Dustin grabbed her hand.
“Mom, what is he talking about?”
She held him close.
Outside, the stranger opened the black ledger.
He removed a faded hospital photograph and pressed it against the glass.
It showed Claire asleep in a hospital bed after giving birth.
Daniel stood beside her holding a newborn.
In the background, Henry carried a second baby toward the door.
On Henry’s wrist was the silver bracelet engraved with GM.
The boy standing outside looked up at the camera.
His eyes were the same shade of green as Claire’s.
Gabriel raised his hand toward the doorbell again.
Then he spoke the words that made everyone inside Bellweather freeze.
“Before you open this door, Claire, you need to know which boy is really yours.”
The lights throughout Bellweather House went out.
The security screen turned black.
May you like
From somewhere inside Henry’s study, a hidden lock clicked open.
And in the darkness, a second recording began to play.
