Chapter 7 - The Baby With Lily’s Name
The patient number belonged to a girl named Sophie Bennett.
Sophie had been born six weeks before Lily.
Her mother had brought her to the same hospital repeatedly during her first year of life.
I had no idea who she was.
Daniel did.
The moment I said the name, he went silent.
“Daniel?”
“I know her father.”
“Who?”
“Mark.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“What?”
“Before Caleb, Mark and Jessica had a daughter.”
I stared at him.
“He never told me.”
“Because she wasn’t Jessica’s.”
Sophie’s mother was a woman named Rebecca Bennett.
Mark had an affair with Rebecca early in his marriage.
Sophie was born from that relationship.
Margaret had reportedly arranged a private financial agreement.
Rebecca moved to Vermont.
Mark rarely saw the child.
I understood immediately.
The stored sample labeled Lily Hayes wasn’t Lily’s.
It was Sophie’s.
And if Sophie was Mark’s biological daughter, she would not match Daniel as a parent.
Someone had deliberately mislabeled it.
Daniel confronted Margaret.
This time, he recorded the conversation.
She denied everything.
“I volunteered at that hospital for years.”
“You witnessed the form.”
“I witnessed hundreds of forms.”
“You knew Sophie.”
“So?”
“You hated Claire before Lily could even talk.”
Margaret’s eyes narrowed.
“Be careful.”
“No.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“You be careful.”
He had never spoken to his mother that way.
Margaret saw the difference.
For the first time, she seemed unsure of him.
“Who switched the sample?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Mark?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Daniel placed the two reports on her kitchen table.
“One says Lily is my daughter.”
“One says she isn’t.”
Margaret looked at them.
“The second one proves Claire manipulated the first.”
“No.”
Daniel shook his head.
“The second proves somebody planted a false sample four years ago.”
Margaret’s face lost color.
That reaction mattered.
Daniel saw it too.
“You knew there was a sample.”
Margaret said nothing.
“Mom.”
Her lips trembled.
“I was protecting you.”
“From my daughter?”
“From Claire.”
“Why?”
“Because women like her know how to use men.”
Daniel stared at his mother.
Then his voice became strangely calm.
“Women like you?”
Margaret slapped him.
Daniel didn’t react.
She seemed shocked by her own hand.
He picked up the reports.
“You’ll never touch Lily again.”
Margaret’s face twisted.
“You’ll regret choosing that woman over your family.”
Daniel opened the door.
“Lily is my family.”
He walked out.
That should have felt like victory.
It didn’t.
Because Mark had disappeared.
Jessica called me that night crying.
“He emptied two business accounts.”
“How much?”
“Almost nine hundred thousand dollars.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
Then she said something stranger.
“He took Margaret’s old files.”
“What files?”
“The ones she kept from the hospital.”
I closed my eyes.
“Jessica, why would Mark need those?”
“I don’t know.”
She began crying harder.
Then she whispered.
“But I found something he forgot.”
“What?”
“A birth certificate.”
“Whose?”
She hesitated.
“Daniel’s.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“No.”
Jessica’s voice shook.
“Because the father’s name isn’t Richard Hayes.”
“Samuel Reed?”
“No.”
I stopped breathing.
“Then who?”
May you like
Jessica answered.
“Someone named Thomas Vale.”
