Chapter 10: The Stranger with Daniel's Face
The man standing amid the shattered glass looked so much like Daniel that, for one impossible second, Daniel wondered whether he was staring at his own reflection.
The same dark hair.
The same sharp jaw.
The same small scar near the left eyebrow, acquired during a childhood bicycle accident.
But the stranger's eyes were different. They were colder, older somehow, as though he had spent his entire life learning to distrust everyone who approached him.
Thomas gripped the bedrail.
“Edward.””
The stranger smiled without warmth.
“Hello, Uncle.””
Daniel turned toward his father.
“You said Edward was dead.””
“I said he was buried.””
The distinction landed like a blow.
Detective Bennett drew her weapon.
“Hands where I can see them!””
Edward raised both hands. A thin line of blood ran down his cheek from a cut caused by the broken glass.
“I didn't come here to hurt anyone,” he said.
“You climbed through a hospital window,” Bennett replied.
“You can explain your intentions to the officers outside.””
Edward glanced at Daniel.
“I came for my brother.””
Daniel stepped between him and Thomas.
“I'm not your brother.””
“Not according to the DNA.””
Edward reached inside his coat.
“Don't!”” Bennett shouted.
He slowly withdrew a folded document and placed it on the floor.
“Original laboratory results,” he said.
“The ones your mother stole before she died.””
Daniel stared at the paper.
“Why would my mother have your DNA results?””
“Because she discovered that I was the child who disappeared from the hospital.””
Thomas struggled to sit up.
“That's impossible.””
Edward laughed bitterly.
“You've said that about everything you didn't want to believe.””
He looked at Daniel.
“Our grandfather had an affair with a nurse named Margaret Bell. She gave birth to a son eight months before Thomas married Eleanor. My grandfather arranged for the baby to be raised under another name.””
“Edward Hayes,” Daniel whispered.
“Exactly.””
Edward explained that he had grown up believing his adoptive parents were his biological family. When they died in a car accident, he found documents hidden among their belongings that connected him to the Hayes family.
He had approached Thomas years later, hoping to learn the truth.
Instead, he had discovered a family determined to erase him.
“My grandfather wanted one legitimate heir,” Edward said.
“Thomas was his chosen son. When I appeared, the old man feared the trust would become contested. He arranged for me to disappear.””
Daniel looked at Thomas.
“Did you know?””
Thomas shook his head slowly.
“Not until after the crash.””
Edward's smile vanished.
“Convenient.””
“It's the truth.””
“The truth?”” Edward stepped closer.
“Your father paid people to bury me alive in every legal sense of the word. He gave me a new identity, then threatened my mother when she tried to find me.””
His voice cracked.
“She died believing I had abandoned her.””
For a moment, Daniel saw something beneath Edward's anger that he recognized from his own grief.
A boy who had been denied the right to know his family.
But that didn't explain the shooting, the threats, or the elaborate scheme surrounding the wedding.
“Why did you come here?”” Daniel asked.
Edward looked at the brass key on the bedside table.
“Because the vault contains the original trust documents. And because your father has been lying to you about who arranged his disappearance.””
Thomas's face hardened.
“Don't listen to him.””
Edward ignored him.
“Eleven years ago, Thomas discovered that our grandfather had left me a substantial inheritance. Instead of helping me claim it, he staged his death and disappeared.””
Daniel stared at his father.
“You staged the plane crash?””
Thomas looked away.
“I arranged to disappear. I didn't arrange the crash.””
“Then who did?””
Edward answered before Thomas could.
“Richard Whitmore.””
The room fell silent.
Edward continued.
“Richard was handling the family's legal affairs. He learned about the inheritance and realized he could take control of the company if Thomas vanished and Daniel remained the sole recognized heir. He arranged the crash, but Thomas escaped before the plane went down.””
Daniel's stomach tightened.
“Why would my father leave me behind?””
Thomas's eyes filled with tears.
“I thought I could protect you by making everyone believe I was dead. I didn't know Richard would use the confusion to take control of your mother's finances.””
“You let me bury an empty coffin.””
“I thought Richard would stop if he believed I was gone.””
Edward laughed.
“And I thought I could reclaim what belonged to me by making Daniel disappear. Apparently, we were both fools.””
Daniel studied the two men.
One had been his father, absent for eleven years.
The other was a stranger who shared his face and claimed a place in his family.
Both had been harmed by the same web of lies.
And both seemed willing to destroy someone else to repair their own lives.
“Where is Marcus?”” Daniel asked.
Edward's expression changed.
“Marcus?””
“My best friend. The man who shot Thomas.””
“I don't know.””
“You expect me to believe that?””
Edward glanced toward the shattered window.
“Marcus was supposed to bring me the key. Instead, he tried to kill Thomas and take it himself.””
Thomas nodded weakly.
“He wants the trust activated before anyone discovers his real identity.””
Daniel turned toward Edward.
“Who is Marcus, really?””
Edward hesitated.
Then he pulled a second photograph from his coat.
It showed a young woman standing beside a hospital bed, holding a newborn baby.
The woman had dark hair and a small beauty mark beneath her left eye.
Daniel recognized her immediately.
Victoria.
But the photograph was dated thirty-four years earlier.
“That isn't possible,” Daniel whispered.
Edward's expression was grim.
“Victoria was adopted. Richard told everyone she was his biological daughter, but her birth records were falsified.””
Daniel felt the floor shift beneath him.
“Who was her mother?””
Edward looked at Thomas.
Thomas closed his eyes.
“Margaret Bell,” he whispered.
Daniel stared at the photograph.
Victoria was Edward's daughter.
Which meant the woman he had nearly married was his cousin.
And if Edward was right about the family records, Marcus's entire identity was still a mystery.
Daniel turned toward Edward.
“Why are you telling me this now?””
Edward looked at the key.
“Because the original trust names the rightful heir. And because if Richard reaches the vault first, he'll destroy the only proof that can expose all of us.””
The hospital alarm continued to sound.
Footsteps thundered outside the room.
Edward stepped backward toward the broken window.
“Come with me, Daniel. I'll take you to the vault.””
Daniel didn't move.
“You just broke into a hospital and nearly got arrested.””
“Then stay here and wait for Richard to send someone else.””
He leaned closer.
“You have three hours before the trust is transferred to a new beneficiary.””
“How do you know?””
“Because I wrote the transfer instructions.””
Daniel's blood ran cold.
“You're part of this.””
“I was.””
Edward's expression hardened.
“Now I'm trying to stop it.””
He climbed onto the window ledge.
“Ask your mother why she kept my photograph in her Bible. Ask her why she wrote that one son had been stolen and another had been replaced.””
Then he disappeared into the darkness.
Detective Bennett rushed to the window, but Edward was already gone.
Daniel looked down at the brass key.
Beside it lay the document Edward had dropped.
He picked it up and unfolded the laboratory report.
At the bottom, beneath the genetic comparison results, was a handwritten note in his mother's familiar script.
*Daniel is not Thomas's biological son.*
Daniel stopped breathing.
May you like
For thirty-four years, everyone had been lying about who he was.
And now the one person who might have known the truth was dead.
