Chapter 5 - THE SECRET IN THE HOSPITAL RECORDS
Martin called me at six o’clock the next morning.
“I have the records,” he said without preamble. “And you’re going to need to sit down.”
I was already standing in the kitchen, coffee gone cold in my hand.
“Tell me.”
“Seven years ago, Elena didn’t go to the hospital for a checkup. She went in for emergency testing. And while she was there… she had a DNA test run. Secretly.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“A DNA test?”
“Between her and the baby,” Martin said. “And someone else. The results were mailed to her home. Signed for by… Vanessa Hale.”
The floor seemed to sway beneath me.
“Vanessa was there,” I said. “Seven years ago. Before I even met her.”
“She was working as Elena’s assistant,” Martin said. “You were away so much. Elena trusted her. She was the one person Elena thought she could rely on.”
I gripped the edge of the counter.
“Elena trusted her… and Vanessa betrayed her.”
“It looks that way. And there’s more. I found the hospital discharge papers. Elena was kept overnight because she was under extreme emotional distress. The doctor wrote in her notes that she was terrified. That she kept repeating that someone was going to take her baby away.”
I felt sick.
“Take him away? Who?”
“The name is crossed out,” Martin said. “But the initials are legible. M.H.”
Marcus Hale.
I closed my eyes. Everything was connecting. Vanessa had been Elena’s assistant. She had access to everything—our home, our conversations, our secrets. She had known Elena was afraid. She had known about the baby. And then, months later, Elena was gone.
Elena died four days after Caleb was born. Sudden illness, they said. Pneumonia. Fast. Untreatable. I had grieved for years. I had never questioned it. I had never had a reason to.
Until now.
“Martin,” I said, my voice barely audible. “Get me the death certificate. And the autopsy report. Everything.”
“Already done,” he said. “And Adrian… the doctor who signed Elena’s death certificate? He retired suddenly two weeks later. Moved out of the country. And his name… was on the visitor log the night Elena was in the hospital with Marcus.”
Silence stretched between us.
“Adrian?” Martin asked. “Are you there?”
“I’m here,” I said. “Keep digging. Find out what that DNA test said. Find out exactly what Elena was so afraid of.”
I hung up the phone and stood there for a long time, staring at the locket on the table.
If Vanessa had been Elena’s assistant… if Marcus had been threatening her… if Elena had been so afraid… then what did the DNA test mean? Who was Caleb?
I thought back to the note. He doesn’t know yet. And he must never find out.
I thought about Vanessa moving into my life two years ago. Charming me. Winning Caleb’s affection. Waiting.
She wasn’t trying to become my wife. She was trying to get close to Caleb.
And then my phone rang.
An unknown number.
I answered it.
“Adrian,” Vanessa’s voice came down the line. Calm. Too calm. “Don’t dig any deeper. For your own sake.”
“Where is the DNA report, Vanessa?” I demanded. “What did Elena find out?”
She didn’t answer directly.
“Walk away, Adrian. Forget you ever saw the locket. Forget everything. If you keep going… you’re going to hate what you discover.”
“I have a right to know.”
“Your son has a right to be safe,” she snapped back. “Do you think Elena hid the truth because she wanted to? She did it to protect you. To protect him.”
“Protect us from what? You and Marcus?”
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end.
“You don’t understand. Marcus isn’t the problem. He’s just the messenger. There’s someone else. Someone Elena was terrified of. Someone who has been waiting just as long as we have.”
“Tell me who it is.”
“I can’t,” she whispered. “Because if I do… Caleb won’t be the only one in danger.”
The line went dead.
I stared at the phone in my hand.
Someone else.
Someone even more dangerous.
I looked up as the front door opened. Martin walked in, holding a thick manila envelope in his hands. His face was pale. His expression was grave.
He walked into the kitchen and laid the envelope on the table between us.
“I found it,” he said quietly. “The original DNA test results. Elena kept a copy hidden. I found it in her old storage box.”
He pushed the papers toward me.
I stared at them. I didn’t want to look. I was terrified of what I would see. But I reached out, and I turned the page over.
The words seemed to burn themselves into my eyes.
**PROBABILITY OF BIOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIP: 0.00%**
I felt the blood drain from my face.
I read it again.
**CHILD AND ADRIAN COLE: NO BIOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIP DETECTED.**
The room spun. I grabbed the edge of the table to stay upright.
Caleb… my son. The boy I had raised. The boy I loved more than anything in the world.
He wasn’t mine.
Martin put a hand on my shoulder. His voice sounded far away.
“There’s a second page,” he said gently. “Read the rest.”
I forced myself to look.
Beneath the first result, there was a second test.
**CHILD AND MARCUS HALE: PROBABILITY OF BIOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIP: 99.99%**
I dropped the paper.
The silence in the room was deafening.
Everything made sense now.
Elena had known. She had found out. She had been terrified. She had tried to protect Caleb. She had tried to protect me.
And then she had died.
May you like
And Vanessa and Marcus… they hadn’t come here to hurt me.
They had come to take him back.
