Chapter 13 - The Trap Thomas Built
Mom dropped the knife.
Not because police had arrived.
Because Rebecca had.
“You’re supposed to be gone.”
Rebecca smiled without warmth.
“Jason paid badly.”
Mom stared.
“You took the money.”
“Yes.”
“Then stay disappeared.”
“No.”
Rebecca placed the hospital file on Dad’s desk.
“I found what Thomas wanted.”
My pulse climbed.
“What?”
“Original maternity records.”
Mom moved toward them.
Robert blocked her.
Rebecca opened the file.
Two newborn girls.
Same hospital.
Births one day apart.
Me.
Rebecca.
Our mothers.
Linda Brooks.
Sarah Lane.
I stopped.
“Linda is listed as my mother.”
Rebecca nodded.
“But Dad says the records were altered.”
“Yes.”
“By who?”
She looked at Mom.
“Ask her.”
I turned.
Mom’s face had gone gray.
“Who is my mother?”
She did not answer.
“Linda.”
Her eyes filled.
For the first time all night, she looked old.
Not dangerous.
Not powerful.
Just tired.
“Thomas loved you.”
“I didn’t ask that.”
“He was your father in every way that mattered.”
“Not the question.”
Rebecca slid out another page.
Blood typing.
Newborn screening.
My blood type.
O negative.
Linda:
A positive.
Thomas:
AB positive.
Robert stared.
“Impossible parent combination.”
Rebecca nodded.
My skin went cold.
“So neither of them?”
“Biologically, no.”
The room swayed.
I grabbed the desk.
Mom whispered, “It was not supposed to matter.”
I laughed.
“Then why hide it twenty-eight years?”
She closed her eyes.
“Because you were mine.”
“No.”
“You were.”
“No.”
Rebecca pulled out another note.
Sarah Lane’s handwriting.
Linda,
You took the wrong baby.
My lungs stopped.
I stared at Mom.
“What?”
Rebecca continued.
“Sarah’s letters say there was a mix-up after delivery.”
Mom whispered, “It was not a mix-up.”
Silence.
I felt the floor drop.
“What did you do?”
She looked at me.
“I was eighteen.”
“That does not answer me.”
“Thomas and I were not married yet.”
“What did you do?”
Her face crumpled.
“My baby died.”
The room went still.
“I woke up. They told me she was gone.”
My heart hammered.
“Then?”
“I saw Sarah’s baby.”
Rebecca stiffened.
Mom continued.
“Healthy. Alone.”
I could barely breathe.
“You stole me.”
“No.”
The word came fast.
Too fast.
“You stole me.”
“I panicked.”
“You took another woman’s child.”
“I thought—”
“What?”
“That I could fix it.”
Rebecca’s hands shook.
“My mother spent her life looking for me?”
Mom stared at her.
“No.”
Rebecca froze.
“What?”
Mom looked between us.
Then whispered:
“You are not Sarah’s daughter.”
Silence.
Rebecca laughed.
“What?”
“The records were switched twice.”
Robert said, “Linda.”
She ignored him.
“Sarah knew.”
Rebecca stared.
“What did she know?”
Mom’s lips trembled.
“That the babies were already wrong before I touched anything.”
My head pounded.
“Who switched them first?”
Mom looked at the old file.
Then at Dad’s photograph on the desk.
“Thomas’s brother.”
I frowned.
“Dad didn’t have a brother.”
Robert went still.
Actually still.
I looked at him.
“What?”
He said quietly:
“Yes, he did.”
My skin went cold.
“Name.”
“Michael.”
Mom closed her eyes.
Robert continued.
“Michael Brooks disappeared twenty-nine years ago.”
Rebecca whispered:
“Why?”
Mom opened the ledger.
One final page.
Payments.
To Michael.
To Sarah.
To a private clinic.
She pushed it toward me.
At the bottom, Dad had written:
MICHAEL IS THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS WHICH GIRL IS WHICH.
Then the security alarm screamed.
Garage door.
Someone had just entered the house.
Mom whispered:
May you like
“He found us.”
CUT.
