Chapter 7 - The Dead Doctor’s Signature
A dead man had signed my false DNA report.
That sentence sounded insane even inside my own head.
Rebecca checked the medical license database twice.
Dr. Samuel Crane had died from pancreatic cancer.
Yet his digital signature had approved three laboratory reports during the past month.
Mine was one of them.
“What are the others?”
Luka’s team traced them.
Both involved newborn babies.
Both mothers had delivered at hospitals connected to Hayes Medical Holdings.
Derek’s father, Malcolm Hayes, chaired the company.
My blood turned cold.
“So Derek’s family owns part of the hospital?”
“Not directly,” Rebecca said.
“They control the management company.”
I remembered Malcolm visiting me during my pregnancy.
He had always been polite.
Distant.
He called Isla “the heir.”
At the time I thought he meant Derek’s family.
Now I wondered which fortune he had meant.
Luka brought me another photograph.
Samuel Crane stood beside my father and Malcolm Hayes.
The picture was dated twenty-six years earlier.
My father had written something on the back.
M-17 begins with Crane.
Ends with Hayes.
Trust no hospital copy.
My hands trembled.
“My father knew Malcolm?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Because he was trying to keep you outside this.”
“But I was already part of it.”
Luka looked at me.
“Yes.”
That answer scared me more than a lie would have.
“What happened when I was born?”
“We don’t know all of it.”
“You know something.”
Luka leaned against the table.
“Your mother had complications.”
“My mother died after delivery.”
“That is what the records say.”
I stopped breathing.
“What do you mean?”
“The original records are missing.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“Your father spent years trying to recover them.”
“My mother died.”
“I’m not saying she didn’t.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Luka placed one final document in front of me.
It was a newborn identification record.
Mother: Anna Bennett.
Infant: Female.
Time of birth: 3:42 A.M.
Then another form.
Same mother.
Same night.
Infant: Female.
Time of birth: 3:49 A.M.
Two babies.
I stared at the papers until the letters blurred.
“My mother had twins?”
“We don’t know.”
“Where is the other baby?”
“We don’t know.”
A cold fear moved through me.
Then Luka’s investigator called.
He had discovered the identity of the second mother whose recent DNA report carried Dr. Crane’s dead signature.
May you like
Her name was Camille Voss.
Derek’s mistress.
