Chapter 6
Arthur stared at Maya.
She was sharing a packet of crackers with Ethan, unaware that one sentence had changed everything again.
“Where is the other child?” Arthur asked.
“I don’t know,” David replied. “The records are incomplete.”
“Claire gave birth in the same hospital where Maya was born.”
“I see two birth entries. One for Maya Claire Bennett and one for a boy listed as Baby Bennett.”
Arthur gripped the phone.
“There was no boy.”
“Were you present during the delivery?”
Arthur remembered the night clearly.
Claire had gone into labor six weeks early.
The hospital had rushed her into surgery after complications developed. Arthur had waited outside for nearly two hours.
Julian had stayed with him.
Dr. Mercer came out afterward and said Claire was stable and they had a daughter.
Arthur first saw Maya in the neonatal unit.
No one mentioned another baby.
“I wasn’t in the operating room,” Arthur said.
“Then it is possible information was withheld.”
“Why would Claire never tell me?”
“She may not have known.”
Arthur looked toward Joanna.
“Bring everything here.”
David lowered his voice.
“There’s another name on the adoption papers.”
“Whose?”
“Vanessa Reed.”
Arthur nearly dropped the phone.
Vanessa’s maiden name.
“She adopted my son?”
“The document appears to transfer temporary custody to her. But it was never finalized.”
“Where is he?”
“I’m still searching.”
Arthur ended the call and crossed the room.
“Joanna, did Claire have twins?”
Joanna’s expression changed.
Ruth covered her mouth.
“You know,” Arthur said.
Joanna glanced at the children.
“Not here.”
Arthur asked Ruth to stay with Ethan and Maya. Then he took Joanna into an empty consultation room.
“Tell me the truth.”
Joanna closed the door.
“Claire suspected another baby survived.”
“Suspected?”
“She remembered hearing two cries before she lost consciousness. Dr. Mercer insisted she had imagined it.”
“And you believed her?”
“I believed Claire. We searched hospital files together.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She wanted proof first.”
“Why?”
“Because every person around you reported to Julian.”
Arthur shook his head.
“I would have believed my wife.”
“Would you?”
The question struck him.
Joanna continued.
“When Claire accused Mercer of altering her treatment reports, you told her she was confused. When she said company money was missing, you asked Julian to investigate himself. When Ethan tried to tell you Vanessa had been in Claire’s room, you believed Julian.”
Arthur looked away.
Joanna’s voice softened.
“You loved Claire. She knew that. But Julian had spent years teaching you to doubt anything that threatened the life you understood.”
“Where is my son?”
“We found evidence that Vanessa took him from the hospital.”
“Why?”
“At first, we thought Julian ordered it because the trust divided equally among Claire’s children. If one twin vanished, Julian could conceal part of the inheritance.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if the child was hidden under another identity and Julian planned to claim control later.”
“Did Vanessa raise him?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know.”
Arthur stepped closer.
“You knew for years that I had another child, and you disappeared.”
“I was trying to find him.”
“You should have come to me.”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Two weeks after Claire died. Danner found me first.”
Joanna pulled back her sleeve.
A long scar crossed her forearm.
“He told me the next accident would not leave me alive. He showed me photographs of Ethan at school and Maya sleeping in her nursery.”
Arthur’s anger weakened.
“He threatened the children.”
“Yes.”
“So you hid.”
“I gathered evidence. I found witnesses. I traced payments. But every time I got close to the boy, someone moved him.”
“Where was he last?”
“A private foster home outside Cedar Falls.”
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
“What name did he use?”
“Lucas Reed.”
Arthur repeated it quietly.
Lucas.
His son had a name.
A nurse entered to say Ethan’s discharge papers were ready.
Arthur returned to the family room.
He did not tell the children yet.
Maya was four. She could not understand the storm surrounding her.
Ethan was already carrying too much.
David arrived an hour later with two locked cases.
They moved everyone to Ruth’s home under heavy security.
In the dining room, David spread the recovered records across the table.
The hospital delivery report originally listed two live births.
A second version, filed twenty minutes later, listed one.
Both were signed by Dr. Mercer.
A payment of two hundred thousand dollars had been deposited into Mercer’s offshore account the next morning.
Vanessa’s temporary custody form was signed by a social worker named Helen Price.
“Where is Helen now?” Arthur asked.
“Retired,” David said. “She lives in Cedar Falls.”
Joanna shook her head.
“If she’s still alive.”
David opened another file.
“She is.”
Arthur stood.
“Call her.”
“I already did. She refused to speak over the phone.”
“Then I’m going to her.”
The lead detective advised against traveling, but Arthur refused to wait.
Joanna went with him.
They drove under police escort while David remained with the children.
Helen Price lived in a modest brick house beside an elementary school.
She opened the door only after Arthur held up a photograph of Claire.
The elderly woman looked at it and began to cry.
“I wondered when you would come.”
“Where is my son?”
Helen stepped aside.
“Come in.”
Her living room walls were covered with photographs of foster children. Some were babies. Others were teenagers at graduation.
Arthur saw a picture of a dark-haired boy with Claire’s eyes.
The boy looked about three.
Arthur crossed the room.
“Is this Lucas?”
Helen nodded.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
Arthur turned toward her.
“You signed the custody papers.”
“I was forced.”
“By Vanessa?”
“By Detective Danner.”
Joanna closed the curtains.
Helen sat down.
“Vanessa brought the baby to me on the night he was born. She said his mother had died during delivery and his father was unknown.”
“Claire was alive.”
“I learned that later.”
“What happened to Lucas?”
“I placed him with a temporary foster family. Three months later, Danner arrived with documents ordering his removal.”
“Where did he take him?”
“He said another family had adopted him.”
“Was that true?”
“No. I found him again years later in an unlicensed group home.”
Arthur felt sick.
“Why didn’t you contact me?”
“I tried. Julian Bennett answered your office line. The next day, I was accused of falsifying adoption records. Danner threatened to send me to prison.”
Joanna knelt beside her.
“Where was Lucas moved after the group home?”
“To a family named Carter.”
Arthur waited.
Helen looked toward the photographs.
“They died in a house fire eighteen months ago.”
Arthur’s stomach dropped.
“And Lucas?”
“His body was never identified.”
“Then he may be alive.”
“Yes.”
“Who took him?”
“A witness saw a woman lead him from the back of the house before the fire spread.”
“Vanessa?”
“I don’t know.”
Arthur showed her a photograph.
Helen studied it.
“She could have been the woman.”
Arthur turned away, fighting for control.
His son had been stolen at birth, moved through dangerous homes, and possibly kidnapped again.
All while Arthur lived only a few hours away.
Helen stood and removed a small envelope from a desk.
“This arrived six months ago.”
On the front, someone had written:
**For Helen. Please help me find my family.**
Inside was a child’s drawing.
It showed a boy standing beside a little girl in a yellow dress.
Above them were the words:
**My sister Maya.**
Arthur’s eyes filled with tears.
“How did he know her name?”
“There was a note.”
Helen handed it to him.
The handwriting was uneven.
**The woman says my real mom was Claire and my dad is Arthur. She says they didn’t want me. I don’t believe her.**
Arthur could barely read the last line.
**Please tell my dad I’m still here.**
“Was there a return address?”
“No. The envelope was mailed from Oakridge.”
Joanna pulled out her phone.
“That is forty miles north.”
Arthur folded the note carefully.
“Who is the woman?”
Helen’s voice trembled.
“The boy called her Aunt V.”
Vanessa.
Arthur called the prosecutor.
“I need to speak to my wife again.”
Vanessa was brought into another interview room that evening.
This time, her attorney sat beside her.
Arthur placed the drawing on the table.
Her eyes widened.
“Where did you get that?”
“Where is Lucas?”
Vanessa looked at her attorney.
“Do not answer,” he said.
Arthur leaned forward.
“He is my son.”
Vanessa’s eyes filled with tears.
“I kept him alive.”
“You stole him.”
“Julian ordered me to take him from the hospital. He said the baby would be killed if I refused.”
“So you hid him.”
“I gave him to Helen.”
“Then you kept moving him.”
“Because Julian kept finding him.”
“You let him believe his parents didn’t want him.”
“I never said that.”
“He called you Aunt V.”
Vanessa stared at the drawing.
Arthur lowered his voice.
“Where is he now?”
Her attorney whispered to her.
Vanessa shook her head.
“If I tell you, Julian’s people will find him.”
“Julian is in custody.”
“Danner isn’t.”
Arthur glanced at the detective observing through the window.
“Danner is under investigation.”
“That won’t stop him.”
“Tell me where my child is.”
Vanessa’s expression broke.
“I don’t know.”
Arthur slammed his palm against the table.
“You wrote to Helen!”
“No. Lucas did.”
“He said he was with Aunt V.”
“He ran away from the Carter home after the fire. He found me.”
“And then?”
“I took him to Oakridge.”
“To whom?”
“A teacher I trusted.”
“Name.”
“Rachel Cole.”
Arthur wrote it down.
“Address.”
Vanessa provided it.
“Why did you keep this from me?”
“Julian told me you would reject Lucas because Claire had hidden him.”
“You knew that was a lie.”
“I didn’t know what to believe.”
“You knew enough to search for Claire’s evidence.”
Vanessa began crying.
“I wanted to tell you.”
“But?”
“I was afraid you would learn what I did to Claire.”
Arthur looked at the woman he had married.
“Did you kill her?”
Vanessa’s lips trembled.
“No.”
“You gave her the extra dose.”
“Yes, but when I left the room, she was breathing. She opened her eyes and told me she knew about Lucas.”
Arthur felt the air leave his lungs.
“She knew?”
“She made me promise to bring him home.”
“And you didn’t.”
May you like
“I tried.”
“You married me instead.”
