Chapter 8 - Vanessa's Real Name)
Vanessa woke after midnight and asked for her daughter.
Claire brought her a photograph first. The baby lay beneath a knitted violet cap, one fist raised beside her cheek. Vanessa pressed the image to her lips and wept until the heart monitor alarmed.
"She's stable," Claire said. "She needs oxygen, but she is breathing mostly on her own."
"Why are you here?"
"Because your DNA may be connected to my mother's missing child."
Vanessa stopped crying.
Ruth explained the preliminary match. The blood sample from the eighteenth case shared markers consistent with a parent, child, or full sibling relationship to Vanessa. More testing was necessary, but the probability of coincidence was extremely low.
"My mother was named Laura Hart," Vanessa said. "She died when I was nineteen."
"Where were you born?" Claire asked.
"Northstar Research Hospital. It closed years ago."
"Your birth certificate?"
"Delayed registration. Mom said the original was lost in a fire."
Claire and Ruth exchanged a look.
Vanessa turned pale. "What are you saying?"
"We don't know yet. Did Laura ever speak about Evelyn Vale?"
"No. She was a lab technician. She hated hospitals. She used to say rich families treated children like property."
Vanessa asked for the bedside drawer. Inside was a small leather wallet Ryan had brought during their affair. She removed a faded photograph of herself at six years old beside a dark-haired woman.
Laura Hart had a white streak near her left temple.
She was not Evelyn. Her face was narrower, her eyes lighter. But the resemblance was close enough to explain Vanessa's description of the woman who had recruited Ryan.
"Ryan met my mother?" Vanessa whispered.
"Did he?"
"Three months before she died, a man came to our house. I was in college. Mom told me he was helping her correct an old injustice. She called him Ryan, but I thought I remembered wrong when I met him years later. He acted as if we had never seen each other."
"How did Laura die?"
"A gas leak. The house burned."
Fire had destroyed Evelyn's car. Fire had supposedly destroyed Vanessa's birth certificate. Fire had killed the woman who spoke to Ryan.
Patterns did not prove identity, but they revealed intent.
Vanessa began to tremble. "Ryan approached me because of my mother."
"It appears he approached both of us because of our mothers," Claire said.
"He said I was different."
"He said what worked."
The cruelty of the truth made Vanessa close her eyes. Claire remembered the first year of her marriage and felt an unwanted thread of recognition. Vanessa had participated in Ryan's betrayal, but she had also been selected, studied, and manipulated.
"Did your mother leave anything?" Ruth asked.
"A music box. Ryan kept asking about it. I told him it was in storage."
"Where?"
"A facility in Brooklyn. Unit 317."
The brass key from Evelyn's archive had the number 317 etched faintly along its shaft.
Detective Bell arranged officers. Claire stayed at the hospital this time. She had left her sons once to pursue a secret and Ryan had used the absence against her. More importantly, Oliver's breathing had become irregular. Dr. Shah suspected an infection.
Claire sat between the three incubators while Ruth and Bell drove to Brooklyn.
At two in the morning, Oliver's temperature rose.
At two fifteen, cultures were drawn.
At two thirty, the board's public-relations office released a statement blaming Claire for unauthorized interference in neonatal operations.
At two forty, Arthur Voss appeared on television to express concern for patients and shareholders. He wore a dark suit and no ring.
"Where is his founder's ring?" Claire asked Elias.
"He claimed he lost it last year."
"When did the man in Ryan's video wear it?"
"Six weeks ago, according to the file date."
Celeste North arrived at the NICU before dawn.
She was tall, silver-haired, and composed in a charcoal coat. Claire had known her as Aunt Celeste during childhood. Celeste sent birthday books after Evelyn died and stopped when Claire turned twenty-one.
"I heard about Oliver," she said. "May I see him?"
"From here."
Celeste remained behind the glass. Her concern looked genuine, which meant very little to Claire now.
"Did you identify my mother's body?" Claire asked.
Celeste did not turn. "I identified her jewelry and clothing. The remains could not be viewed."
"You told police the body was hers."
"I believed it was."
"Did you help her investigate the neonatal trials?"
"Yes."
"Did you warn her?"
"Too late."
Claire showed her the photograph of Laura Hart.
Celeste's control broke. Her hand struck the glass.
"Laura," she breathed.
"Who was she?"
"Evelyn's research assistant. And the only person who knew where the first baby was taken."
"Was Vanessa that baby?"
"No. Vanessa was Laura's daughter. But Laura raised another child before Vanessa was born. A girl she called Catherine."
The initial C. The woman who recruited Ryan.
"Where is Catherine now?" Claire asked.
Celeste looked toward Elias. "Ask your grandfather why he paid her two million dollars to disappear."
Elias's face hardened. "I paid Laura for evidence. I never met Catherine."
Before Celeste could answer, Claire's phone rang. Ruth was calling from the storage facility.
"Unit 317 was emptied tonight," she said. "But the music box was left in the corridor. It contains a recording. Claire, someone knew we were coming."
"What does the recording say?"
Ruth played it.
A woman's voice emerged through static.
May you like
"My name is Catherine Vale. Claire is my sister. At tomorrow's board meeting, I will claim what our mother left me."
The message ended with the sound of a baby crying.
