Chapter 16 - The Old Recording
Diane answered after a long silence.
“There were two babies.”
Claire stopped breathing.
Julian laughed nervously.
“What are you talking about?”
“Evelyn delivered Claire at St. Matthew’s.”
“I know.”
“So did another woman.”
Claire increased the volume.
Diane continued.
“The other baby was premature.”
Julian said, “What does this have to do with Claire?”
“Nothing, if everyone had done what they were supposed to do.”
The recording went silent for several seconds.
Then Diane whispered, “The bracelets were switched.”
Claire gripped the desk.
Julian sounded confused.
“Accidentally?”
Diane replied, “At first.”
Claire’s stomach twisted.
“At first.”
Those two words changed everything again.
The recording continued.
Diane explained that a nurse discovered the mistake hours later.
Evelyn had already bonded with the infant handed to her.
The hospital corrected the error privately.
Evelyn’s biological daughter was returned.
The other infant went back to her own mother.
Claire exhaled.
Then Julian asked, “Why are you afraid Claire will find out?”
Diane’s answer came quietly.
“Because the other child was Paige.”
Claire stared at the computer.
The room seemed to disappear around her.
Paige.
The girl Claire had grown up calling her sister.
Paige had been born in the same hospital.
Their parents had always claimed Paige was four years younger.
That story was false too.
Julian asked the obvious question.
“How is that possible?”
Diane answered.
“Paige’s birth records were altered after her biological mother died.”
Claire felt nauseated.
Diane had not merely raised Evelyn’s child.
She had also taken Paige.
Two girls.
Two rewritten identities.
Julian’s voice sharpened.
“Who was Paige’s mother?”
Diane whispered a name.
Laura Bennett.
Thomas’s younger sister.
Claire closed her eyes.
Paige was Thomas’s niece.
Diane had raised both Claire and Paige as daughters.
Not because they shared parents.
Because Diane had built a family out of two children whose mothers could no longer stop her.
Then came the part that mattered most.
Julian asked, “Why hide this now?”
Diane replied, “Because Evelyn remembers Laura.”
“What about her?”
“She remembers Laura was in the car.”
Claire stopped.
The accident had never involved Evelyn alone.
There had been another woman.
Laura Bennett.
Paige’s biological mother.
According to the official story, Laura had died from an overdose when Paige was an infant.
Another lie.
Claire called Naomi.
Within an hour, they were pulling old crash records.
The original police report listed one occupant.
Evelyn Hale.
But an archived emergency dispatch log recorded two victims.
Female, twenty-seven.
Female, twenty-four.
The second victim had been transported to County General.
No name was listed.
Naomi looked at Claire.
“If Laura was in that car, Diane concealed more than drugging Evelyn.”
Claire searched the audio files again.
One recording was thirty years old.
Transferred from cassette.
Thomas’s voice.
Diane’s voice.
They were arguing.
Thomas shouted, “Laura is dead because of you.”
Diane screamed back, “Laura was going to take Paige away.”
Claire covered her mouth.
The argument continued.
Then Thomas said something that explained forty years of silence.
“If anyone learns you put those pills in Evelyn’s drink, you will lose both girls.”
Diane answered.
“They are my daughters now.”
Claire stared at the waveform on the screen.
There was their motive.
Not money alone.
Possession.
Diane had built a family she believed belonged to her.
And anyone who threatened it had been removed.
Naomi’s phone rang.
She answered.
Then looked at Claire.
“We found Evelyn.”
“Where?”
“A private clinic outside Milwaukee.”
“Is she safe?”
“Yes.”
Claire nearly collapsed with relief.
“Who took her?”
Naomi hesitated.
“Thomas.”
Claire stared.
“Thomas is in Switzerland.”
“No.”
Naomi turned the phone toward her.
A security photograph showed Thomas entering the Milwaukee clinic with Evelyn.
Timestamped three hours earlier.
May you like
Claire looked at the screen.
“Then who went to Zurich using Thomas’s passport?”
