Chapter 13 - The Woman Who Took the Blame|
Detective Ruiz immediately arranged protection for my mother, but the message had already changed everything.
The sender knew where she was staying. They knew about the birth certificate. And they wanted me separated from the people who could protect me.
Ethan insisted we use the message to track the sender.
“No,” I said. “I'm not bait.”
“I'm not asking you to be.”
“Then stop looking at me as if I'm a problem you can solve with armed men.”
His expression tightened.
“I am trying to keep you alive.”
“And I'm trying to find out who I am.”
We argued until Marcus entered with news: Lydia Shaw had disappeared from the hospital.
Security footage showed her leaving through a service entrance with a man wearing a medical uniform.
The man was identified as a former Blackwood security contractor who had supposedly died in the same warehouse fire as Victor Hale.
Detective Ruiz slammed a folder onto the table.
“We have at least two identities attached to one death scene. Either the organization is manufacturing corpses, or someone has been staging deaths to erase witnesses.”
Ethan looked at me.
“Richard has done this before.”
“How do you know?”
“Because my father once told me there were three people he could never afford to lose: Daniel, Richard, and a woman named Margaret Shaw.”
“Lydia's relative?”
“Possibly.”
We found Margaret in a nursing facility outside the city. She had worked as a records clerk at the private clinic and was now suffering from memory problems, but when I showed her the photograph of my mother and Daniel, her eyes sharpened.
“You're Claire,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“Your father came to me after the fire. He begged me to change one record.”
“Which record?”
She gripped my wrist.
“The paternity report. He said the child had to remain safe.”
My heart pounded.
“Did he change it?”
Margaret shook her head.
“No. Richard did.”
Ethan leaned closer.
“Why would Richard falsify Claire's birth certificate?”
“To make Daniel's daughter appear to be someone else's child,” Margaret said. “If the family discovered she was alive, they would use her to challenge the succession.”
“Who is Daniel's daughter?” I asked, though I already feared the answer.
Margaret stared directly at me.
“You are.”
A nurse approached, explaining that Margaret needed to rest. Before she was taken away, she caught my hand again.
“Your father knew. He chose you over the truth.”
I walked out of the facility in a daze.
Ethan followed me to the parking lot.
“Claire—”
“Don't.”
“I know I can't fix what I've done.”
“No, you can't.”
“But I can help you find out what happened.”
I finally looked at him.
“Then start by telling me why you were meeting Vanessa at the same private clinic where my father worked.”
May you like
His face drained of color.
Because this time, he had no answer.
