Chapter 6 - The Second Test
Lily’s examination took nearly two hours.
The doctor documented dehydration, weight loss, and signs that her food intake had been inadequate.
Nothing life-threatening.
But nothing accidental either.
I sat beside her while she drank slowly from a bottle.
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
Daniel called seventeen times.
I ignored sixteen.
On the seventeenth, I answered.
“What?”
His voice was quiet.
“I found something.”
I said nothing.
“There are cameras.”
My eyes narrowed.
“What cameras?”
“The security system. You installed it after that package theft last year.”
I remembered.
Exterior cameras.
Entryway.
Kitchen.
And one wide-angle camera covering the dining room entrance.
“I thought Mom disabled the indoor one.”
“Apparently she didn’t.”
My heart started pounding.
“Don’t touch anything.”
“Claire—”
“Daniel, if one second disappears, I will assume you deleted it.”
He went silent.
The next morning, I arranged a legally documented DNA test through an accredited laboratory.
Daniel agreed.
Lily was swabbed in front of me.
Daniel provided his sample separately with identification verified.
Then I called the laboratory named on Margaret’s report.
They wouldn’t disclose private information over the phone.
But they confirmed something important.
Their chain-of-custody paternity tests required verified identification for collected samples.
Margaret’s report claimed chain of custody.
Yet neither Lily nor I had ever attended a collection appointment.
Someone had either submitted the wrong sample or falsified documentation.
When I told Daniel, his face drained of color.
“My mother gave me that report.”
“And you never checked it?”
“I trusted her.”
I stared at him.
“That seems to be the sentence destroying this family.”
Then his phone buzzed.
He read the message.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He turned the screen toward me.
The security company had restored archived footage from our dining-room camera.
There were recordings from every day of my business trip.
May you like
Including that afternoon.
👉 We finally had eleven days of footage—and what happened to Lily at dinner was only the beginning.
