Chapter 10 - BEFORE WE MET
I tried to ignore Keller’s words.
I couldn’t.
Luke and I had met twelve years earlier at a charity fundraiser.
At least, that was what I believed.
Detective Bennett investigated.
The truth was worse.
Luke had known who I was before we met.
My mother had died when I was nineteen.
My father died four years later.
They left me a modest inheritance and something I rarely discussed.
My mother had been a medical malpractice attorney.
She had investigated Saint Mercy Hospital.
Keller’s hospital.
Before her death, she believed newborn records were being altered.
Her case disappeared after she died.
Luke knew.
Rebecca knew.
Keller knew.
Luke hadn’t randomly met me.
He had been sent to find out whether my mother had left evidence behind.
Instead, he married me.
Maybe some part of our marriage had become real.
That no longer mattered.
It had begun with a lie.
Bennett found my mother’s old storage account.
Inside were legal files.
One box contained seventeen infant cases.
Another contained photographs of Dr. Keller.
And taped beneath the lid was a flash drive.
The drive changed everything.
My mother had recorded an interview with a nurse who witnessed the first illegal switch fifteen years earlier.
Names.
Dates.
Payments.
Keller.
Rebecca.
Several wealthy clients.
And a young insurance assistant.
Luke Marshall.
Luke had been involved before he ever met me.
When I confronted him, he stopped pretending.
“I loved you.”
I looked at him through the jail visitation glass.
“You studied me.”
“At first.”
“You married me because you thought I had evidence.”
“At first.”
“You let me believe Eli was yours.”
His eyes filled.
“I loved him.”
“You knew another mother was raising your biological child.”
“I was scared.”
“No.”
I leaned toward the glass.
“You were comfortable.”
He flinched.
“You had a wife who trusted you.”
“You had a son who loved you.”
“You had another son living safely somewhere else.”
“And as long as nobody discovered what you’d done, you got to keep everything.”
Luke lowered his head.
“I never wanted Eli hurt.”
“You shoved him when he told the truth.”
He had no answer.
I stood.
“Claire.”
I stopped.
“I’m still June’s father.”
I turned around.
“Biologically.”
His face collapsed.
“You don’t get to use biology as a weapon after spending ten years proving it isn’t what makes someone a father.”
I left.
Outside, Bennett was waiting.
She had news.
Rebecca had accepted a cooperation agreement.
She was naming everyone.
But one name surprised even Bennett.
Dr. Miriam Hale.
The hospital director who had locked down the maternity unit.
May you like
The woman who had supposedly been helping us.
She had been connected to Keller for seventeen years.
