Chapter 12 - Margaret’s Confession
Grace returned to the hotel before dawn.
She did not speak during the drive.
Dominic sat across from her in the armored vehicle, but he made no attempt to defend Margaret.
There was nothing he could say.
Victoria had escaped through an emergency tunnel beneath Saint Catherine’s. Before leaving, she destroyed part of the archive and took several storage drives.
Lucas recovered the recording they had seen.
It was enough to prove Margaret had been present.
Not enough to prove why.
Margaret waited in the penthouse.
Judge Vale was gone.
Two guards assigned to him had been found unconscious near the service elevator.
On the table beside Margaret lay three sealed laboratory envelopes.
The DNA results.
Dominic ignored them.
He placed the hospital recording on the television.
Margaret watched her younger self enter the treatment room.
She did not look away.
When the footage ended, Grace stood behind her.
“You knew.”
Margaret’s voice was barely audible.
“Yes.”
“You told me Elena discovered the switch years later.”
“She did.”
“You were there when it happened.”
“I was there after the first child died.”
Grace struggled to control her anger.
“You placed the identification band.”
“Yes.”
“On which baby?”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“I don’t know.”
Grace struck the table with both hands.
“You expect us to believe that?”
“The lights failed during the procedure. Sebastian had moved the children. Their bands had been removed. When the emergency generator returned, he handed me one band.”
“Whose?”
“The DeLuca band.”
“And you placed it on a random child?”
Margaret began to cry.
“Anthony told me one was his son.”
“Your son was dead.”
“I did not know that yet.”
“You heard Anthony say it in the recording.”
“The camera captured words I did not hear from the hall. Machines were alarming. Nurses were shouting. Sebastian told me my child would die unless I acted.”
Dominic stood near the window.
“What did placing the band accomplish?”
“It determined which child would be taken upstairs and entered into the DeLuca records.”
“And the others?”
“One was registered as Evelyn Vale. The third disappeared.”
Grace felt the words like a blow.
“Disappeared where?”
“Sebastian claimed the infant died.”
“Did you see a body?”
“No.”
“Then the third child may have survived.”
“Yes.”
Grace looked at Dominic.
“Victoria said I was born the same night.”
Margaret’s face filled with pain.
“Elena did not give birth to you that night.”
Grace froze.
“What?”
“Elena gave birth to a son.”
“Then who am I?”
Margaret looked toward the photograph in Grace’s wallet.
“Elena found you sixteen years later.”
“Where?”
“In a private care facility operated by Sebastian Vale.”
Grace stepped backward.
“No.”
“She had been searching for her son. Instead, she found a girl with no legal identity, no school records, and no family name.”
“How old was I?”
“Approximately two.”
“That would mean the facility existed long after the hospital incident.”
“It did.”
“Why was I there?”
“I do not know.”
Grace laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
“You have said that too many times.”
“It is the truth.”
“My entire life is a question you refused to answer.”
Margaret gripped the wheelchair arms.
“Elena took you because Sebastian intended to move you overseas. She believed you were connected to the neonatal program.”
“How?”
“There was a medical mark behind your shoulder.”
Grace touched the crescent birthmark.
“Not a birthmark?”
“A surgical marker.”
Dominic turned.
“The same as mine.”
Margaret nodded.
Grace felt suddenly sick.
“Why did Elena call me her daughter?”
“Because she loved you.”
“That does not explain why she never told me.”
“She wanted to. She was waiting until she understood what had been done to you.”
Grace looked at the three laboratory envelopes.
“The tests.”
Lucas opened the first.
“The result says Grace and Dominic have a twenty-eight percent probability of being half siblings.”
He opened the second.
“Eighty-nine percent probability of being full siblings.”
The third.
“No detectable sibling relationship.”
Dominic looked at the papers.
“Victoria was right.”
“The altered markers interfere with standard testing,” Lucas said.
Grace sat down.
“So nothing proves who we are.”
Margaret reached toward her.
Grace moved away.
“Do not.”
Margaret lowered her hand.
Dominic finally faced his mother.
“Why did Elena die?”
“I called her that night.”
Grace looked up.
“You sent her home?”
“I warned her that Anthony’s old associates knew she had found the facility records.”
“Anthony was already dead.”
“But the network remained. Conrad, Sebastian, Victoria, several foundation trustees.”
“Was Conrad at the apartment?”
“Yes.”
“Did he kill her?”
“I don’t know.”
Grace almost shouted.
Margaret continued quickly.
“Elena called me during the fire. She said the evidence had been divided. One part was in the wheelchair camera. Another was hidden with the third child.”
“The infant who disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“That child would be thirty-five now.”
“Yes.”
Dominic looked at the laboratory reports.
“And may be the true DeLuca heir.”
Margaret nodded.
A notification sounded on Lucas’s tablet.
He opened the hotel vault surveillance feed.
The vault door stood open.
The letter Elena had given Dominic at his father’s funeral was gone.
In its place lay a black envelope.
Dominic opened the live audio channel.
A recorded voice played through the vault speakers.
It belonged to Elena.
May you like
“If you are hearing this, Margaret has finally confessed. Do not trust the third child.”
The recording ended.
