Chapter 5 - THE SECOND HEIR
Firefighters contained the blaze before it destroyed the clinic.
The remaining records revealed a secret Alexander had never known.
His father, Richard Whitmore, had created two family trusts.
One passed through Alexander.
The other passed through Alexander’s missing younger brother, Julian.
Julian disappeared twenty-four years earlier after a boating accident.
His body was never found.
The family assumed he had drowned at seventeen.
According to the trust, a biological child descended from either brother could inherit controlling shares.
Marcus suspected Cynthia believed Elena’s baby might qualify through Julian’s bloodline instead of Alexander’s.
“That makes no sense,” Alexander said.
“The embryo came from my fertility treatment.”
“Unless Dr. Bell used a different embryo,” Marcus replied.
The possibility devastated him.
For years, Dr. Bell had managed every private medical record connected to the Whitmore family.
He could have changed labels, test results, and genetic reports.
Dana told agents that Cynthia frequently referred to the baby as “the second heir.”
She also remembered a man visiting Elena late at night.
The man never entered through the front.
“He was about Alexander’s age,” Dana said.
“Elena called him Julian.”
Alexander’s face hardened.
“My brother is alive?”
Dana could not confirm it.
She had heard only the name through a partially open door.
Marcus searched corporate records.
Several shell companies connected to Rosebridge were controlled by a man named James Vale.
James Vale had no birth certificate before the age of eighteen.
His first official record appeared seven months after Julian Whitmore’s disappearance.
A photograph showed a man with gray hair and a scar above his left eyebrow.
Alexander recognized the scar.
Julian had received it after falling from a horse when they were children.
The dead brother had been alive for decades.
He had financed the clinic that imprisoned Elena.
He may also have fathered the unborn child.
That evening, Vanessa called from police custody.
She sounded frightened.
“Cynthia contacted me.”
“How?” Alexander asked.
“She has people inside the department.”
“What did she say?”
“She told me to remember what happened to our mother.”
Vanessa refused to explain further.
Minutes later, officers found her cell empty.
The security camera showed Vanessa walking out beside a woman in a police uniform.
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The uniformed woman removed her cap outside the building.
It was Cynthia.
