Chapter 8 - THE SECOND CHILD
Police searched the estate again.
Nothing.
No boy.
No extra bedroom.
No second child listed among staff.
Then Lily heard the description.
“Oliver.”
Adrian stared at her.
“Who is Oliver?”
Lily looked toward the floor.
“My friend.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“At the clinic.”
The private clinic.
Oliver had been placed near Lily during one of her earlier confinements.
He told her his father belonged to the Ashbourne family too.
Lily remembered one surname.
Rowe.
Detective Vale’s expression changed.
Dr. Stephen Rowe had a nine-year-old son named Oliver.
Public records said the child attended boarding school in Vermont.
The school had no record of him.
Why hide the psychiatrist’s own son?
Police searched Rowe’s Manhattan townhouse.
Empty.
Then his financial records.
A trust account for Oliver contained eighteen million dollars.
Source.
Ashbourne Family Education Trust.
The boy was not simply Rowe’s son.
DNA records later answered the rest.
Oliver’s biological father was Sebastian Ashbourne.
Dr. Rowe had raised the child publicly under his own name.
Sebastian had funded him secretly.
Why?
The family trust excluded children born outside recognized marriages unless formally acknowledged.
Sebastian wanted Oliver’s inheritance.
Victoria opposed it.
Rowe helped hide Lily.
In exchange, Sebastian believed Victoria would eventually recognize Oliver.
Instead, the boy became leverage.
Everyone was using children to negotiate adult wealth.
Then we received a video.
Sent to my phone.
Oliver sat in a chair.
Unharmed.
Terrified.
Sebastian stood behind him.
“If the police continue freezing accounts, the boy disappears permanently.”
Adrian slammed his fist against the table.
Vale immediately said.
“Do not respond emotionally.”
I looked at Adrian.
He forced himself to step back.
That mattered.
Sebastian wanted chaos.
Vale asked.
“Why send it to Elena?”
I knew.
Because the family had already chosen me as the public villain.
If something happened to Oliver after I exposed the mansion, Sebastian could frame it as fallout from my actions.
Then the message continued.
Elena created this.
Elena can fix it.
Withdraw the trust challenge.
Say Lily was hidden for medical protection.
Tell Catherine to remain quiet.
I looked at Vale.
“Can we trace it?”
“Working on it.”
Then Lily touched my arm.
“That room.”
“What?”
She pointed at the video background.
A green tile wall.
A painted bird.
“I’ve seen it.”
“Where?”
She closed her eyes.
“The swimming house.”
Adrian understood.
The family owned an abandoned indoor pool complex sixty miles north.
Police moved immediately.
May you like
Sebastian had made his first mistake.
He used a place Lily remembered.
