Chapter 3 - THE FALSE TEST
The laboratory was called Northbridge Diagnostics.
I had never heard of it.
According to Luka, Ethan had paid them three weeks before Sophie was born.
“For what?”
“A prenatal paternity report.”
“I never had a paternity test.”
“Exactly.”
Luka showed me the invoice.
The client name was hidden behind a numbered corporate account.
But the payment came from Cole Strategic Holdings.
Ethan’s company.
My stomach twisted.
“He manufactured evidence?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Why?”
Luka studied me.
“Because he planned to leave before Sophie was born.”
That hurt more than watching him walk away.
His cruelty hadn’t been impulsive.
It had been scheduled.
Prepared.
Documented.
I stared at my newborn daughter.
“He knew.”
“He knew he was leaving.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“He knew I had nobody.”
Luka’s expression softened.
“That may be why he chose you.”
I looked up sharply.
“What does that mean?”
Instead of answering, he handed me another document.
My marriage certificate.
Attached was a background investigation commissioned by Richard Cole seven months before Ethan proposed.
My education.
My father’s death.
My mother’s death.
My bank accounts.
My childhood address.
Everything.
At the bottom was one handwritten note.
BENNETT TRUST STATUS UNKNOWN.
My skin prickled.
“They investigated me before Ethan proposed?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because your father left something behind.”
“I told you, there was nothing.”
“That’s what the Coles wanted you to believe.”
The hospital discharged Sophie late that afternoon.
I refused the wheelchair at first.
Then my legs nearly collapsed.
Luka caught my elbow without touching Sophie.
“No heroics.”
“I just gave birth.”
“That’s my point.”
A black SUV waited outside.
I hesitated.
Luka noticed.
“You choose where we go.”
“My father’s house.”
He nodded once.
We drove through rain.
For the first hour, neither of us spoke.
Sophie slept in the infant carrier a nurse had helped secure.
I watched every breath she took.
When we turned onto the road where I had grown up, my chest tightened.
Then I saw the house.
Still there.
Same gray stones.
Same maple tree.
Same porch.
I started crying before the car stopped.
Luka looked away.
He gave me the privacy of pretending not to notice.
Inside, nothing had been preserved like a museum.
But nothing had been destroyed either.
My father’s bookshelf remained.
His old piano.
The brass lamp he used while reading.
I ran my fingers across the kitchen counter.
“How?”
“Your father placed the property in trust before he became ill.”
“Why didn’t I know?”
“Because the trust required an independent custodian to contact you when one of two conditions occurred.”
I looked at him.
“What conditions?”
“Your thirtieth birthday.”
“And the other?”
“The birth of your first child.”
I stared toward Sophie.
“So her birth activated it.”
“Yes.”
My phone buzzed again.
This time it was Vanessa.
A photograph appeared.
She was sitting on my bed.
Wearing my white silk robe.
Ethan stood behind her.
Beneath the photograph was one sentence.
HE CHOSE HIS REAL FAMILY.
My hands began trembling.
Luka looked at the screen.
Then he quietly said, “She made a mistake.”
“What?”
“She showed us where Ethan is.”
I looked at him.
“And?”
“And the lamp beside your bed is reflected in the mirror.”
I didn’t understand.
Luka enlarged the image.
Behind Vanessa was a black metal box I had never seen.
He stared at it.
“That’s a secure document case.”
My pulse quickened.
“What would Ethan keep in it?”
Luka looked at me.
“If I’m right…”
May you like
He paused.
“The original M-17 file.”
