Chapter 8 - THE BLOOD TEST
The next morning, we took a DNA test.
I didn't want to.
But the photograph had planted a question in my mind.
Perrin watched us from the hospital room.
“Did I do something wrong?”
I knelt beside him.
“No.”
“Then why are you scared?”
“Because grown-ups sometimes make terrible mistakes.”
He nodded.
Elise sat beside him.
“You are loved.”
The results came back that afternoon.
I was his biological father.
I nearly collapsed with relief.
The photograph had been another lie.
But Richard had wanted me to doubt my own son.
He had wanted to break the family apart.
The detective found another clue.
A bank account linked to Rhea.
Millions of dollars had passed through it.
But Rhea had not received the money.
She had been paying someone.
A private investigator.
For six years.
We found him.
His name was Caleb Shaw.
He admitted he had tracked Elise.
But he also revealed something unexpected.
“Rhea wasn't the person who ordered the kidnapping.”
“Who was?”
He looked at me.
“Your mother.”
I couldn't speak.
“My mother is dead.”
Caleb shook his head.
“No.”
He placed a photograph on the table.
My mother stood beside Rhea.
Alive.
Smiling.
I felt the room tilt.
My mother had supposedly died when I was seventeen.
A heart attack.
A funeral.
A grave.
Another lie.
Elise whispered:
“She was there.”
“What?”
“She was there the night they took me.”
My entire childhood suddenly became a question.
I looked at the photograph again.
My mother was holding Perrin.
On the back was a date.
Three days after Elise supposedly died.
And underneath it:
May you like
THE HEIR MUST NEVER KNOW.
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