I thought I’d misunderstood her.
“Jessica wasn’t born when I was born.”
Rebecca nodded.
“I know.”
“Then how could she sign anything?”
“She didn’t.”
“Then what do you mean?”
Rebecca opened the wooden box again.
Beneath the cassette was a photocopy.
I looked at it.
It was an old hospital document.
At the bottom was a signature.
Richard Carter.
Next to it was another signature.
Elaine Hayes.
My mother’s.
I stared at the page.
“That’s my mother’s signature.”
Rebecca nodded.
“But the original was altered.”
“How?”
“She never signed the final document.”
My hands tightened around the paper.
“Then whose signature is this?”
Rebecca whispered:
“Someone copied hers.”
I looked at Maya.
“Can handwriting prove that?”
“Possibly,” she said. “But we need the original.”
Rebecca nodded.
“That’s why Arthur hired the attorney.”
Maya stepped closer.
“Where is the original?”
Rebecca pointed toward the cassette.
“Your father believed the original was hidden in a private archive controlled by Richard Carter.”
“Richard is dead.”
“Yes.”
“Then who controls it now?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“His daughter.”
Jessica.
I sat silently.
Everything I’d believed about my marriage was beginning to crack.
But there was one thing I couldn’t accept.
Jessica couldn’t have known about me before we met.
She couldn’t have planned our marriage.
Could she?
Maya must have seen the question on my face.
“Ethan, knowing a secret doesn’t mean she knew it when you met.”
That distinction mattered.
I looked at Rebecca.
“When did Jessica first come to you?”
“Eight months ago.”
“Why?”
“She said she was researching her father’s estate.”
“And she knew about me?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“Her father left her a letter.”
“What did it say?”
“She didn’t show me the whole thing.”
“But?”
Rebecca looked down.
“He told her that if anyone ever came looking for the Miller records, she needed to stop them.”
My heart sank.
“Did she threaten you?”
“No.”
“She paid you $25,000.”
Rebecca looked surprised.
“You know about that?”
“We found the receipt.”
Rebecca sighed.
“She offered me money to disappear.”
“Why?”
“Because I had the cassette.”
“What happened?”
“I refused.”
“So why did she pay you?”
“She was desperate.”
I stared at the old cassette.
“What is on it?”
Rebecca’s eyes filled with tears.
“Your mother’s final message.”
Maya found an old cassette player in the house.
Rebecca inserted the tape.
Static filled the room.
Then a woman’s voice.
Soft.
Exhausted.
Terrified.
“Arthur, if you’re hearing this…”
I stopped breathing.
I knew that voice.
It was my mother’s.
“Please protect our son.”
My eyes filled with tears.
The recording continued.
“Richard knows about the mistake. He says it can be fixed, but I don’t trust him.”
Static.
Then:
“The baby in the Miller bassinet is not mine.”
I looked at Rebecca.
The tape continued.
“I gave birth to Ethan. I know that because I saw him before they took me away.”
My heart pounded.
“Arthur, if something happens to me, don’t let Richard take our son.”
The recording ended.
Silence.
I couldn’t speak.
My mother had called me her son.
My father had raised me.
Then why did Rebecca say Margaret Miller was my biological mother?
Maya rewound the tape.
We listened again.
There was something I’d missed.
At the very end, barely audible beneath the static, my mother said:
“Rebecca knows.”
I looked at her.
Rebecca was crying.
“What does that mean?”
She wiped her face.
“Your mother knew I had seen what happened.”
“What happened?”
Rebecca took a deep breath.
“Your father wasn’t the only person who came to the hospital that night.”
“Who else?”
“Richard Carter.”
“Why?”
“He wanted to change which family received which child.”
“Why?”
“I never understood why.”
“But you said the Miller baby wasn’t mine.”
“No.”
“Then whose was the Miller baby?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“That’s the part your father never discovered.”
I stood.
“What do you mean?”
Rebecca looked at Maya.
“Because the Miller baby wasn’t Margaret’s either.”
The room became silent.
“What?”
Rebecca whispered:
“There were three families involved.”
My stomach dropped.
“Three babies?”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“Three sets of records.”
Maya’s expression changed.
“Rebecca, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that the hospital wasn’t covering up a simple switch.”
She looked at me.
“They were covering up a child who wasn’t supposed to exist in their records at all.”
My phone rang.
Jessica.
I answered.
“What?”
Her voice was shaking.
“Ethan, where are you?”
“Why?”
“Because I know what you found.”
“How?”
“Because Rebecca called me.”
I looked at Rebecca.
She shook her head.
“I didn’t.”
Jessica whispered:
“Then someone else did.”
“Who?”
There was a pause.
Then Jessica said:
“Your father.”
I looked toward the hospital.
“He’s still unconscious.”
“I know.”
“Then how could he call you?”
Jessica’s breathing became unsteady.
“He didn’t call me today.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He called me two nights before he went to the hospital.”
“What did he say?”
She whispered:
“He told me he knew I had found the third record.”
My entire body went cold.
“What third record?”
Jessica began crying.
“The one that proves Richard Carter wasn’t my biological father.”
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