Chapter 12 - THE VOICE
The recording was fake.
Michael proved it within minutes.
Someone had used old audio samples of my mother to create the call.
But the question remained:
Who had access to her recordings?
Nathan knew immediately.
“The hospital.”
We returned to St. Mary's.
The archives were locked.
Mrs. Carter was gone.
The records room had been emptied.
Someone had taken every file related to my mother.
Then Lily found a hidden drawer.
Inside was a photograph.
My mother.
Pregnant.
Standing beside a man.
Thomas Hale.
Michael stared.
“That's him.”
Dad had been released after the false evidence was challenged.
When he saw the photograph, he became furious.
“Why was my wife with him?”
Nathan answered:
“Because he was her doctor.”
Dad froze.
“What?”
“He delivered Lily.”
Silence.
Michael looked at the date.
“He also signed Nathan's birth record.”
Dad stared.
“Then he knew everything.”
“Yes.”
We tracked Thomas Hale.
He had disappeared ten years earlier.
But his daughter was still alive.
And her name was Clara.
We finally understood.
Clara had not been Vanessa.
She had been working for Thomas.
Robert had been working for my grandfather.
And Thomas had been the medical connection linking all three children.
But why?
Because Thomas had changed the birth records.
He had created the false family tree.
He had made Lily disappear.
He had hidden Nathan.
And he had altered the trust documents.
Dad looked at me.
“Your mother discovered him.”
“And he killed her.”
“Yes.”
Then we found Thomas's final address.
An abandoned clinic outside town.
We went there with police.
Inside, the walls were covered with photographs.
My mother.
Lily.
Nathan.
Me.
My father.
Robert.
Clara.
Everyone.
Thomas had been watching us for decades.
Then we found a locked room.
Inside were boxes of medical records.
One box had my name.
I opened it.
My birth certificate.
My mother's records.
And a DNA report.
Michael looked at it.
His face changed.
“What?”
He handed it to me.
The report showed something impossible.
I was not biologically related to my father.
I stared at the paper.
“No.”
Dad's face went pale.
“That can't be true.”
Michael shook his head.
“The test may be manipulated.”
Nathan looked at Thomas's records.
“There is another sample.”
He found it.
The original laboratory report.
This one showed that Dad was my biological father.
The first report had been forged.
Someone wanted to create doubt.
Again.
The goal was always the same.
Separate the family.
Make us distrust each other.
Then control the inheritance.
Thomas was arrested before he could escape.
But he laughed as police took him away.
“You still don't know who owns the company.”
Dad stared.
“What?”
Thomas smiled.
“Your mother didn't put the company in Ethan's trust.”
Michael looked shocked.
“Then where?”
Thomas answered:
“Under the name of the person she trusted most.”
Everyone looked at me.
I whispered:
“Who?”
Thomas laughed.
“Ask Maria.”
We all turned.
May you like
Maria stood frozen near the doorway.
Her face had gone white.
