Chapter 7 - SIX MONTHS EARLIER
I looked at Vanessa.
She knew immediately.
“Jonathan called.”
Her face collapsed.
Martin turned toward her.
“What did you do?”
Vanessa sat down.
Six months earlier, she found my mother’s investigation notes in the locked room.
“How?”
“The key.”
“You said Mom gave it to you.”
“She did.”
“When?”
“Two weeks before she died.”
That part remained consistent.
My mother apparently contacted Vanessa after learning Martin was her father.
She believed Vanessa might persuade him to answer questions.
Instead, after my mother died, Vanessa continued investigating privately.
She found Jonathan.
Then she went to Connecticut.
“Why?”
“I wanted to know whether he looked like you.”
“You could see photographs.”
“I wanted to see him.”
“Did you tell him who you were?”
“No.”
Jonathan’s voice came through my phone.
“You told me you were researching my biological family.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“What else?”
Jonathan said Vanessa asked whether he knew the identity of his birth mother.
He did not.
She asked whether he had ever heard the name Eleanor Sterling.
No.
Then she asked for DNA.
He refused.
“She came back the next day.”
I stared at Vanessa.
“You went twice?”
“Yes.”
Jonathan continued.
“The second time she had a photograph of Richard.”
I felt sick.
“What did she tell you?”
“That Richard might be my brother.”
There it was.
Vanessa had known the possibility for six months.
“You hid this from me?”
“I was trying to verify it.”
“By yourself?”
“Your mother asked me to.”
“My mother asked you to talk to Martin. Not stalk a stranger.”
Vanessa cried.
“I thought I could solve it before hurting you.”
Again.
Protection.
Control.
Same costume.
Different person.
Then Jonathan said something important.
“I agreed to a DNA test.”
I stood.
“What?”
“Vanessa arranged it.”
My eyes snapped toward her.
“Where?”
She whispered, “Private lab.”
“Results?”
Vanessa looked at Martin.
Then at me.
“They said you and Jonathan were brothers.”
Silence.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“Full brothers?”
“The report said first-degree relationship consistent with siblings.”
“That is not the same thing.”
My attorney nodded.
Exactly.
We needed the actual report.
Vanessa retrieved it from her email.
Chain of custody was poor.
She submitted samples herself.
Jonathan confirmed giving his own swab.
But mine?
I stared at her.
“How did you get my DNA?”
She whispered, “Your toothbrush.”
I nearly laughed from disbelief.
“You secretly tested me?”
“Yes.”
“Without permission?”
“Yes.”
Jonathan said, “I didn’t know that.”
His anger sounded real.
The result could be meaningful.
But it was not enough.
We agreed to independent testing through an accredited facility with verified identities.
Martin sat silent.
Then Jonathan asked:
“Richard, did your mother have blue eyes?”
“Yes.”
“My daughter does too.”
Meaningless by itself.
But human.
I suddenly wanted this man to be my brother.
That frightened me.
Wanting an answer could distort evidence as easily as fearing one.
So I said:
“We wait for the test.”
Jonathan agreed.
Then Martin stood.
“Richard, there’s something else.”
Vanessa looked terrified.
He continued.
“Your mother wasn’t the only person investigating James.”
“Who else?”
“Your father.”
That shocked me.
“My father told her James died.”
“Yes.”
“Then why investigate?”
Martin looked down.
“Because six years after your birth, your father received a photograph of a living boy.”
My pulse jumped.
“What boy?”
“He believed it was James.”
“Who sent it?”
Martin’s answer changed the entire direction of the story.
“Your mother.”
I stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Martin shook his head.
May you like
“No. Eleanor and your father were investigating each other.”
📖 I thought my parents had shared one terrible secret, but learning they secretly investigated each other meant James’s disappearance had fractured their marriage long before I could remember. 👇
