Chapter 11 - The DNA File
I felt Dad’s hand tighten around mine.
Thomas stopped the video.
Dad looked at me.
“You are my daughter.”
His voice was immediate.
Certain.
The recording could not change that.
But someone had hidden a DNA report inside the folder.
It showed zero biological probability between us.
My throat closed.
Diane’s video continued.
“Ava was born two months before I met Daniel. Wade is her biological father.”
I stepped away from the phone.
“No.”
Wade had threatened me.
Grabbed me.
Watched me from school.
The idea that he was my father made me feel sick.
Dad knelt in front of me.
“Look at me.”
I could not.
“Ava.”
I finally raised my eyes.
“He did not raise you.”
“No.”
“He did not sit beside you when you had pneumonia.”
“No.”
“He did not teach you to swim.”
I shook my head.
“He does not get to become your father because of a laboratory report.”
I started crying.
Dad pulled me into his arms.
Thomas examined the document.
The laboratory had been owned by Wade’s brother.
The result could be forged.
An independent test was ordered.
Diane refused to explain further without her lawyer.
Wade smiled when Detective Mills asked him.
“She has my temper.”
Dad had to leave the room before he hit him.
The new DNA test took forty-eight hours.
During that time, I avoided mirrors.
I saw pieces of Wade everywhere.
My eyes.
My jaw.
My anger.
Dad never let me be alone with those thoughts.
When the results arrived, Detective Mills called us together.
Wade was not my biological father.
Neither was Daniel.
The report identified an unknown paternal relative.
But the maternal result carried the greater shock.
Diane was not my biological mother.
May you like
The woman whose body had been found beneath the basement was.
Emma Reed.
