Chapter 15 - The Other Daughter
The woman’s name was Isabel Vale.
She arrived in New York the next day.
Thirty-two years old.
Dark hair.
Gray eyes.
A faint birthmark near her eyebrow.
Emily stared at her across Daniel’s conference room.
The resemblance was undeniable.
Vanessa stood near the window.
“This is impossible.”
Isabel smiled coldly.
“You seem to use that word often.”
Emily asked, “Who raised you?”
“A family in Zurich.”
“Did they tell you who you were?”
“No.”
“I learned after my adoptive father died.”
Isabel placed a file on the table.
Inside were letters from Gerald Vale.
He had visited her secretly for years.
He told her she was Clara Ashbourne’s daughter.
“He was lying.”
Emily said.
Isabel looked at her.
“Maybe.”
Margaret leaned forward.
“You’re older than Emily.”
“Yes.”
That complicated everything.
Clara had only one known pregnancy.
Emily.
So Isabel could not also be Clara’s daughter.
Unless the entire story was wrong.
Samuel asked, “What was your birth date?”
Isabel answered.
Margaret gasped.
“What?”
“That was six months before Clara was sent away.”
Silence.
Emily stared.
“So she wasn’t your mother.”
“No.”
Isabel looked toward Vanessa.
“But Gerald was definitely my father.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“My father never had another child.”
Isabel laughed.
“Apparently he did.”
DNA testing confirmed it within hours.
Vanessa and Isabel were half-sisters.
Gerald Vale had fathered Isabel with an unidentified woman.
Then used Isabel as the decoy child.
Daniel looked horrified.
“He used his own daughter.”
Isabel’s smile was bitter.
“That was Gerald.”
Emily asked, “Why tell you Clara was your mother?”
“Control.”
Isabel looked at Vanessa.
“He wanted me to believe the Ashbourne inheritance was mine.”
Vanessa finally understood.
“He planned to use you against Emily.”
“Yes.”
“Even after he died?”
“He left instructions.”
Emily’s heart tightened.
“To do what?”
Isabel opened another envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
Emily recognized the west library.
The red ledger sat open on the desk.
Beside it stood Gerald.
And Clara.
Alive.
Older.
At least twenty.
Margaret grabbed the table.
“That can’t be.”
Emily stared at the date on the photograph.
It had been taken four years after Clara supposedly died in Canada.
Emily looked at Samuel.
“You lied.”
Samuel went pale.
“No.”
“You said she died.”
“I believed she did.”
Isabel tapped the photograph.
“Gerald knew better.”
Emily’s pulse raced.
“My mother survived.”
Isabel nodded.
“For years.”
“Where is she now?”
Isabel’s expression softened.
“That’s why I came.”
She reached into her bag.
Then placed a recent photograph on the table.
A woman stood outside a small house near the ocean.
Gray hair.
Thin face.
Same eyes as Emily.
On the back was a date from three months earlier.
May you like
Emily stopped breathing.
Isabel whispered, “Clara Ashbourne is alive.”
