Chapter 4 - THE SECOND DAUGHTER
Claire stared at Laura.
“Who is she?”
Laura closed her eyes.
“Claire—”
“Who is my daughter?”
Laura did not answer.
Rebecca whispered.
“Is it her?”
Claire looked at the woman.
Laura was thirty-seven.
Impossible.
Daniel spoke through the phone.
“Laura adopted a child seven years ago.”
Laura’s eyes snapped open.
“No.”
Daniel continued.
“A little girl named Sophie.”
Claire had heard that name.
She remembered a photograph from Charles Bennett’s funeral.
A dark-haired girl standing beside Laura near the cemetery gates.
Claire had assumed she was a relative.
“How old is Sophie?”
Laura whispered.
“Eight.”
Claire’s chest tightened.
“Where is she?”
“Safe.”
“WHERE?”
Rebecca jumped.
Claire lowered her voice.
“Tell me where my daughter is.”
Laura started crying.
“I didn’t know at first.”
“What do you mean?”
“When they handed me the baby, they said she was mine.”
“The sick baby.”
Laura nodded.
“She was struggling to breathe.”
“I held her.”
“I begged them to help.”
“They said surgery was impossible.”
“But she survived the night.”
“Then Charles came.”
“He told me there had been a mistake.”
“He said my actual daughter had died.”
Claire understood.
“He let you believe the sick baby was mine?”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“He offered to transfer her to a specialist hospital.”
Laura wiped her face.
“I signed everything.”
“I thought I was giving someone else’s dying baby a chance.”
“She disappeared.”
“For almost a year.”
Claire’s hands shook.
“Then where did Sophie come from?”
“An adoption agency contacted me.”
Laura looked ashamed.
“They said a baby girl needed a home.”
“She was almost one year old.”
“She had a surgical scar on her chest.”
Claire could barely breathe.
“You knew.”
“Not immediately.”
Laura shook her head.
“I suspected.”
“When she turned four, I had a private DNA test.”
“And?”
Laura looked directly at Claire.
“Sophie was your biological daughter.”
Rebecca squeezed Claire’s hand.
Claire felt tears burning behind her eyes.
Eight years.
Her daughter had been alive for eight years.
Growing up less than a hundred miles away.
Calling another woman Mom.
Claire’s voice cracked.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Charles threatened to take Rebecca.”
Claire went still.
“He said if I exposed the switch, he would claim Rebecca had been illegally removed from my custody.”
“You’re her biological mother.”
“Yes.”
Laura looked at Rebecca.
“And I knew what that would do to her.”
Rebecca stared back.
Laura continued.
“I watched your family from a distance.”
“I saw Rebecca happy.”
“I saw Sophie happy.”
“I convinced myself silence was protecting both girls.”
Claire almost laughed from disbelief.
“Protecting?”
“I was wrong.”
“Yes.”
Laura nodded.
“I know.”
Daniel interrupted.
“This is why Laura cannot be trusted.”
Claire turned toward the phone.
“And you can?”
“I kept Rebecca with you.”
“You helped steal her.”
“I stopped my father from taking her away later.”
Claire froze.
“When?”
“After you started asking about the missing birth photographs.”
Claire remembered.
Rebecca had been six months old.
Claire had asked why there were no pictures from the neonatal unit.
Daniel said a computer failure had deleted them.
His father had become furious when she pushed.
Daniel continued.
“Dad wanted to move Rebecca overseas.”
“I refused.”
“So you’re a hero now?”
“No.”
Daniel’s voice broke.
“I’m telling you I spent eight years trying to contain something I should have stopped on the first night.”
A crash sounded from the hallway.
Everyone turned.
The fake nurse appeared behind the glass.
She held a fire axe.
Rebecca screamed.
The woman swung.
The glass cracked.
Laura stepped in front of Rebecca.
Claire grabbed Ethan’s bassinet.
The fake nurse swung again.
A spiderweb fracture spread across the door.
Then she shouted through the glass.
“You people still don’t understand.”
Claire stared at her.
The woman pointed toward Ethan.
“That baby is the only reason Charles Bennett finally confessed.”
She raised the axe again.
“Because Ethan isn’t Daniel’s son.”
Claire shouted.
“I already know that.”
The fake nurse smiled.
“No.”
“You really don’t.”
May you like
She struck the glass.
“Ethan isn’t Claire’s son either.”
