Nobody answered the door.
Daniel waited outside for nearly a minute before speaking again. “Susan, I'm not asking you to forgive me. I'm asking you to listen.” I looked at Michael. His face had gone rigid. Thomas stood beside the table with one hand resting on the folder. Lily was behind Jake, watching me.
“Why should I trust you?” I called.
“You shouldn't.”
The answer surprised me.
Daniel continued. “Trust the documents. Trust the dates. Trust what you can verify.”
Thomas looked at me and nodded once.
I unlocked the door but kept the chain in place.
Daniel stood on the porch with both hands visible. He looked exhausted. His coat was damp from the morning fog, and there was a bruise along his jaw.
Michael noticed it.
“What happened to you?”
Daniel looked at him.
“Someone wanted the same thing I have.”
“What?”
Daniel reached inside his coat slowly and removed a thin envelope.
“The original medical transfer record.”
My breath caught.
“How did you get it?”
“My father kept a copy.”
“You said he was dead.”
“He is.”
“Then where did you find it?”
“In his office.”
Michael stepped closer.
“You broke into his office?”
“No. My mother gave me the key.”
I opened the door.
“Come in.”
Michael immediately objected.
“Susan.”
“I want to know what he has.”
Daniel entered.
He placed the envelope on the table but didn't sit.
Lily stared at him.
“You knew me.”
Daniel looked at her.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Since you were a child.”
Her face tightened.
“And you never told me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Daniel looked toward me.
“Because I was afraid that if I told you who I was, someone would use you to get to me.”
Lily laughed bitterly.
“Everyone had a reason.”
Daniel accepted the words without defending himself.
“I know.”
Thomas opened the envelope.
Inside was a hospital transfer record dated July 19, 2008.
Patient: Susan Miller.
Infant: Female.
Transfer authorization: Margaret Harris.
Destination: St. Anne's Children's Center.
I read the line twice.
“That isn't Lily's record.”
“No,” Daniel said.
“What does it mean?”
“There were two infants.”
Lily looked at me.
“So the other baby was transferred separately.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Daniel pointed to the next page.
“That's where things get complicated.”
The second destination had been blacked out.
Not crossed through.
Blacked out with ink.
Thomas held it beneath the lamp.
“Can this be restored?”
“Not easily.”
Daniel removed another sheet.
“This is a copy from before the original was altered.”
Thomas read it.
“Northbridge Women's Home.”
I knew the name.
It was a private maternity facility that had closed years ago.
“Who ran it?”
“My aunt.”
“Margaret?”
Daniel nodded.
“Then why did she tell us she didn't know where the other child went?”
“Because she didn't.”
I looked at him.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I expect you to understand that people were moving those babies around without telling each other everything.”
Michael spoke quietly.
“Why?”
Daniel looked at him.
“Because Robert was trying to create a legal trail that would make one child disappear.”
“Which child?”
“We never knew.”
I felt sick.
“How could nobody know?”
“Because the records were deliberately separated.”
Thomas examined the document again.
“This signature.”
“What about it?” I asked.
“It isn't Margaret's.”
Daniel nodded.
“That was the detail that convinced me my father wasn't telling me everything.”
“Whose signature is it?”
Daniel pointed.
“Robert Miller.”
My uncle had authorized the transfer.
I sat down.
“Why would he send the child away?”
Daniel looked at Lily.
“Because your father changed his trust after discovering that Robert was stealing from the company.”
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“What did he discover?”
“Millions had disappeared.”
Thomas nodded slowly.
“That's why the trust contained the audit records.”
Daniel continued.
“Your father knew Robert would destroy the evidence if he could. So he placed everything inside the trust and made the children the ultimate beneficiaries.”
Lily looked confused.
“Why children?”
“Because Robert couldn't legally control the trust forever if the beneficiary was an adult.”
“And if one child disappeared?”
“Robert could argue that the surviving child had never been properly identified.”
Thomas looked up.
“That would allow him to challenge the trust.”
Daniel nodded.
“Exactly.”
I looked at Michael.
“You knew all this.”
“Not all of it.”
“You knew enough.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I didn't know which child was Lily.”
The room went quiet.
Daniel took another document from his pocket.
“This is why I came.”
He placed it before me.
A handwritten note.
The handwriting belonged to my father.
Susan,
If both girls survive, keep them apart until the trust can protect them.
I stared.
“Why?”
Daniel looked at me.
“Because someone had already tried to kill one.”
Lily's face went pale.
“When?”
“Before you were discharged.”
She gripped the back of a chair.
“Who?”
“We never proved it.”
Michael's voice was low.
“Daniel.”
“What?”
“Tell her everything.”
Daniel looked at him.
“You first.”
Michael's jaw tightened.
I looked between them.
“What are you hiding?”
Daniel answered.
“Your overdose wasn't an accident.”
I felt the floor tilt.
“I know.”
“No. You don't.”
He opened another folder.
“The pills were placed in your medicine cabinet.”
“I took them myself.”
“You did.”
“But you had been drugged before that.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Someone had been giving you sedatives.”
Michael looked down.
“I found out afterward.”
“Who?”
“We don't know.”
Daniel said, “My father suspected Robert.”
I shook my head.
“Why would Robert drug me?”
“To make you look unstable.”
The room went silent.
“If you were declared mentally incompetent, Robert could petition for control over your financial affairs.”
Thomas nodded.
“That would also give him an argument regarding the trust.”
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.
The life I remembered was becoming a collection of carefully arranged traps.
Daniel looked at me.
“I was supposed to convince you to leave Michael.”
I looked at him.
“You were supposed to?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Robert believed you would trust me.”
“And you did it.”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever love me?”
Daniel looked away.
“For a while.”
The honesty hurt more than a lie would have.
“And then?”
“I realized what I had done.”
“But you kept seeing me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because by then I knew you were in danger.”
I laughed quietly.
“So you became my protector after helping put me in danger.”
“Yes.”
I hated how complicated the answer was.
Lily walked toward Daniel.
“Did you know I was your sister?”
He looked at her.
“No.”
“You said there were two babies.”
“I knew there were two. I didn't know which one survived.”
She studied him.
“Then why did you keep searching?”
“Because one of them was my daughter.”
Lily stepped back.
“You're my father.”
Daniel's face broke.
“Yes.”
She turned away.
I couldn't move.
The man who had destroyed my marriage had just admitted he was Lily's biological father.
Michael sat down.
Thomas closed his eyes.
Jake looked at Lily.
She seemed suddenly much younger.
Daniel whispered, “I'm sorry.”
She answered without turning.
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
Then something struck the front window.
Glass exploded inward.
Lily screamed.
Michael grabbed her and pulled her down.
Another shot cracked through the room.
Thomas fell against the table.
Blood appeared on his shirt.
“Thomas!”
I dropped beside him.
He was conscious.
“I'm all right,” he said.
“You're bleeding.”
“It's a graze.”
Daniel moved toward the broken window.
Michael shouted, “Get down!”
Daniel looked outside.
A vehicle was speeding away.
He turned back.
“They found us.”
Thomas pushed himself upright.
“No.”
He reached into his coat.
“They found this.”
He pulled out a small key.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The trustee's safe.”
Daniel stared at it.
“You still have it?”
Thomas nodded.
“For eighteen years.”
He looked at me.
“Your father left one final instruction.”
“What?”
Thomas's expression changed.
“If the family was ever reunited, I was to deliver the trust to an independent trustee.”
“Who?”
Thomas handed me the key.
“That's the problem.”
He looked toward the road.
“Someone already changed the appointment.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: We Went Looking for the Trustee Before the Family Secret Could Be Used Against Us, but Someone Had Already Changed the Appointment
The Date My Doctor Mentioned Should Have Meant Nothing, Yet It Opened a Door My Husband Had Spent Eighteen Years Keeping Locked
Part 6 of 12
