Chapter 3 - THE OTHER CHILD
The police separated everyone in the suite.
Margaret was taken to a private consultation room.
Sophia remained with Elena while a new medical team arrived from another hospital.
Adrian refused to trust anyone employed by St. Catherine’s.
Marcus Reed arranged for specialists from Columbia Medical Center to evaluate Elena.
He also obtained an emergency court order preventing St. Catherine’s from altering or destroying any medical records.
By sunrise, police technicians were copying security footage and seizing computers from Dr. Harlan’s executive office.
Harlan had vanished.
His car remained in the underground garage.
His phone had been found beneath a sink in a staff restroom.
Adrian sat beside Elena’s bed while an independent obstetrician examined her.
Dr. Naomi Perez was calm, direct, and visibly disturbed by what she saw.
“The baby’s heartbeat is stable,” she said.
“There are no signs of active labor.”
Adrian exhaled slowly.
Elena closed her eyes.
Dr. Perez examined the puncture wounds near Elena’s knee.
“I need blood samples immediately.”
“What do you think they injected?” Adrian asked.
“I will not speculate until the laboratory results return.”
“Could it have harmed the baby?”
“Possibly.”
The answer was honest.
That made it more frightening.
Dr. Perez looked at the bruising around Elena’s ankles.
“These marks are consistent with restraints.”
Elena’s mouth tightened.
Dr. Perez lowered her voice.
“Mrs. Whitmore, I need you to tell me everything you remember.”
Elena looked at Adrian.
He took her hand.
She began with the study.
Two nights earlier, she had returned to the Whitmore estate to retrieve a box of family photographs for the nursery.
Adrian had been in Boston.
Margaret was supposed to be attending a charity dinner in Manhattan.
The mansion had seemed empty except for two housekeepers and the overnight security staff.
Elena entered Richard Whitmore’s study because she remembered seeing childhood photographs stored in the lower cabinets.
Richard’s desk had remained locked since his death.
Margaret insisted no one disturb it.
That night, however, one of the desk drawers was slightly open.
Elena found a brass key inside.
The key unlocked a hidden cabinet behind a wall panel.
Inside were copies of the original Whitmore trust, private correspondence, and financial records.
Elena photographed the documents because she feared Margaret would destroy them.
Before she could leave, Margaret appeared in the doorway.
Dr. Harlan stood behind her.
“They knew I was there,” Elena said.
“They must have been watching the security cameras.”
Adrian’s grip tightened around her fingers.
“What happened next?”
“Your mother asked for my phone.”
“I refused.”
“Dr. Harlan said I was experiencing a psychiatric episode.”
“He told the guards not to listen to anything I said.”
Elena paused.
Her breathing became uneven.
Adrian wanted to stop her.
Dr. Perez gently encouraged her to continue only if she felt able.
Elena nodded.
“Two men came into the study.”
“They held my arms.”
“I kicked one of them.”
“That is when Margaret told them to strap my legs together.”
Adrian looked away for a moment.
He could not bear the picture forming in his mind.
“They carried me through the service corridor,” Elena continued.
“There was a private ambulance waiting behind the kitchen.”
“They brought me here through the underground entrance.”
“At the hospital, Dr. Harlan showed me a temporary guardianship form.”
“He said I could sign it voluntarily or be declared mentally incompetent.”
“What did Mother say?”
“She said your baby belonged to the Whitmore family before he belonged to me.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
Elena’s voice broke.
“She told me wives could be replaced.”
“Heirs could not.”
Dr. Perez stepped away to speak with the laboratory technician.
Adrian leaned closer to Elena.
“I am sorry.”
“You did not do this.”
“I left you alone with her.”
“You believed your mother.”
“I should have known.”
Elena looked at him.
“That is what she wants you to think.”
“She wants you ashamed and confused.”
“She wants you blaming yourself instead of looking at what she did.”
Adrian lowered his forehead to Elena’s hand.
Even now, bruised and frightened, she was trying to keep him focused.
He kissed her fingers.
“I will not let her near you again.”
A detective entered the room.
Detective Lena Ruiz was in her early forties, with tired eyes and an expression that revealed nothing.
She introduced herself and asked Adrian to step into the hallway.
Elena immediately became tense.
“He can stay.”
Ruiz looked at her.
“This involves information we obtained from Margaret Whitmore.”
“Then I want to hear it.”
The detective considered this.
Then she closed the door.
“Mrs. Whitmore claims there were two infants at the private maternity clinic on March 17, 1986,” Ruiz said.
Adrian stared at her.
“Two boys?”
“One boy and one girl.”
“Were they twins?”
Ruiz glanced at her notes.
“According to Margaret, they had different mothers.”
Adrian frowned.
“Then why does the photograph say ‘the other baby’?”
“Because both children were connected to Richard Whitmore.”
The room became silent.
Ruiz continued.
“Margaret says Richard maintained a relationship with a woman named Evelyn Shaw.”
“She worked as an accountant for Whitmore Shipping.”
“Evelyn gave birth to a daughter several hours before Margaret gave birth to a son.”
Adrian felt cold.
“You’re saying Richard had two children born on the same day.”
“That is Margaret’s claim.”
Adrian looked at Elena.
“Why would that cause my father’s death thirty-eight years later?”
Ruiz closed her notebook.
“Margaret refused to answer.”
“She requested an attorney.”
“Where is the girl now?”
“We do not know.”
“Where is Evelyn Shaw?”
“She disappeared six weeks after the births.”
Adrian stood.
“What does disappeared mean?”
“No employment records.”
“No tax filings.”
“No passport activity.”
“No confirmed death certificate.”
“Nothing.”
Elena looked toward the newborn photograph.
“Maybe Adrian is not the boy in that picture.”
Ruiz’s eyes moved toward her.
“That possibility has occurred to us.”
Adrian felt the air leave the room again.
Margaret said Richard was not his biological father.
Yet the photograph suggested Richard fathered another child born the same day.
What if the babies had been switched?
What if the story about Adrian’s parentage was another layer of manipulation?
Marcus entered with a folder.
He looked exhausted.
“We found the original trust filing.”
Adrian turned.
“Where?”
“In a sealed probate archive.”
“Richard filed it six months before his death.”
Marcus opened the folder.
“The trust says controlling shares transfer when Richard Whitmore’s first biological grandchild is born.”
Elena touched her stomach.
Marcus shook his head.
“There is more.”
“The beneficiary is not Adrian’s child alone.”
“The trust identifies two bloodlines.”
“Adrian’s and a woman named Catherine Shaw.”
Ruiz looked up.
“Who is Catherine Shaw?”
“We do not know.”
Adrian answered quietly.
“The other baby.”
Marcus nodded.
“The trust gives Adrian and Catherine equal authority.”
“If either has a child, the family assets shift into a jointly controlled generational trust.”
“And Margaret loses voting control?” Elena asked.
“Immediately.”
Adrian walked toward the window.
His mother’s plan became clearer.
If Elena’s baby triggered the trust, the sealed records could expose Catherine’s existence.
Margaret would lose control of the company.
Any hidden financial misconduct could be discovered.
“She wanted the baby under her guardianship before the birth activated the trust,” Elena said.
Marcus nodded.
“That is likely.”
Adrian turned back.
“Find Catherine Shaw.”
Ruiz spoke carefully.
“We may already have found her.”
Everyone looked at the detective.
She placed a photograph on the bed.
It showed Nurse Sophia Quinn entering a courthouse three years earlier.
Her hair was longer.
She wore glasses.
The name beneath the photograph was not Sophia Quinn.
It was Catherine Evelyn Shaw.
Adrian stared toward the door.
Sophia had left the room ten minutes earlier to deliver Elena’s blood samples.
Ruiz opened the door.
A hospital orderly was running toward them.
“Detective,” he shouted.
“The nurse assigned to Mrs. Whitmore was attacked in the laboratory.”
Adrian rushed into the hallway.
They found Sophia unconscious beside an overturned cart.
The blood samples were gone.
May you like
A message had been written across the laboratory wall with a red marker.
ONE HEIR IS ALREADY TOO MANY.
