Chapter 6 - The Basement Room
Charles had lived in the Whitmore estate for thirty-one years.
The basement was enormous.
Wine storage.
Mechanical rooms.
Old furniture.
Family archives.
He had never heard of anything hidden there.
We searched anyway.
Behind a shelving unit in the archive room, Rebecca noticed scratches on the floor.
We moved the shelf.
There was a narrow door.
Charles stared at it.
“I have never seen that.”
The lock was modern.
Not thirty years old.
Someone had been using the room recently.
A locksmith opened it the next morning while police observed.
Inside were filing cabinets.
A refrigerator.
A desk.
And photographs.
Hundreds of photographs.
Evan as a baby.
Evan at school.
Evan graduating college.
Our wedding.
My pregnancy.
Sophie being born.
Sophie at one.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Someone had documented our family for years.
Charles picked up one photograph.
“This was taken through a window.”
It showed Sophie asleep in her nursery.
I nearly vomited.
Detective Morales, the officer now handling the broader investigation, ordered everyone out while technicians processed the room.
They found fingerprints.
Margaret's.
Nathan Vale's.
And another unidentified set.
Then investigators opened the refrigerator.
Inside were sealed biological specimen containers.
Some were expired.
Some were labeled with codes.
One had my name.
Claire Bennett Whitmore.
Another had Evan's.
Another had Sophie written in Margaret's handwriting.
I looked at Detective Morales.
“What is this?”
“We're going to find out.”
One drawer contained cassette tapes.
Thomas recognized Nathan's voice on the first recording.
The conversation was dated twelve years earlier.
Margaret spoke first.
“Charles still believes Evan is his.”
Nathan laughed.
“After this long, he deserves the lie.”
Then Margaret said something that chilled everyone listening.
“Evan belongs to Whitmore blood one way or another.”
Thomas frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Charles looked equally confused.
The recording continued.
Nathan said, “Thomas would disagree.”
Margaret replied, “Thomas doesn't know everything.”
The tape ended.
Thomas stared at the recorder.
“What doesn't Thomas know?”
We played another cassette.
This one dated 1987.
Nathan's voice.
Margaret's voice.
And a third person.
Edward Whitmore.
Charles's father.
Edward was supposed to have died in 1986.
Yet the tape was clearly labeled fourteen months later.
Charles sank into a chair.
“My father was alive.”
The voice on the tape spoke clearly.
“You promised me there would be no child between you and Charles.”
Margaret answered.
“There won't be.”
“And Thomas?”
“He'll provide what we need.”
Edward said, “Thomas cannot know the whole arrangement.”
Thomas went pale.
“What arrangement?”
Nathan laughed on the tape.
“The Whitmore family tree stopped being a tree a long time ago.”
The tape ended with Margaret saying one final sentence.
“If the child is male, Charles will raise him as his own, and Thomas will never know that the sample wasn't his either.”
Nobody moved.
Evan whispered, “What?”
Thomas stared at him.
Slowly, horribly, the implication became clear.
Thomas might not be Evan's biological father either.
The earlier DNA test had only shown Charles was not.
We had assumed Thomas because of the affair.
We had never actually tested them.
Thomas provided a sample immediately.
The result came the next day.
Probability Thomas Vale was Evan's father: 0%.
Evan looked at me.
“Then who the hell is my father?”
The answer was somewhere inside Margaret's hidden room.
Investigators found it on an old medical ledger.
Male specimen.
Donor: E.W.
Collection date: June 1987.
There were two men in the family with those initials.
Evan Whitmore did not yet exist.
Edward Whitmore did.
Charles's father.
Margaret's biological father.
If Nathan had used Edward's sample to create Evan, Margaret had conceived a child with genetic material from her own father.
Thomas stood abruptly.
“No.”
Charles covered his mouth.
I felt physically sick.
Detective Morales immediately cautioned us.
“Initials aren't proof.”
He was right.
We needed DNA.
Edward Whitmore had supposedly been dead for forty years.
But the cassette proved his reported date of death was false.
Charles whispered, “There's one person who might know.”
“Who?”
“My father's attorney.”
The attorney was ninety-one years old and living in a nursing home in Virginia.
His name was Harold Pike.
When Charles called, Harold remained silent for nearly a minute.
Then he asked whether Margaret was listening.
Charles said no.
May you like
Harold responded with six words.
“Then you finally found the basement.”
