Chapter 8 - Brin Holloway’s Father
Brin didn’t know.
That was the first thing she said when I returned.
“My father died before I was born.”
“Name?”
“Thomas Holloway.”
Elias Vane had laughed when I gave him that name.
There was no Thomas Holloway.
Catherine invented him.
“Then who?” Brin asked.
I placed an old photograph on her hospital blanket.
My father, Patrick Hale.
Beside him stood Catherine Holloway.
Not colleagues.
Not casual friends.
His hand rested against her pregnant stomach.
Brin stopped breathing.
“No.”
I hated what I had to ask next.
“When were you born?”
She answered.
I did the arithmetic.
So did she.
“Your father and my mother…”
“Yes.”
She pushed the photograph away.
“That doesn’t make him my father.”
“No.”
“Did Vane prove it?”
“He has DNA records.”
“Records can be forged.”
“I know.”
She looked at our son.
Fear replaced anger.
“If Patrick was my father…”
“We’re not related.”
She looked sharply at me.
“My mother was married to Patrick’s brother.”
Brin blinked.
My father’s younger brother, Elias Hale, had disappeared before I was born.
Family history claimed he died overseas.
Elias Vane told a different story.
Elias Hale became Elias Vane.
The man Chicago believed murdered my father was actually my uncle.
And Brin’s possible father was Patrick.
The Hale family had been tied to Lakefront from the beginning.
“Why hide it?”
Because Patrick discovered Lakefront’s original cardiac research was being used for something beyond medicine.
Biometric tracking.
Identity verification.
Eventually remote access to implanted devices.
Powerful technology.
Dangerous technology.
Catherine wanted it destroyed.
Patrick helped her.
Then Patrick died.
Catherine vanished from Lakefront and raised Brin under another name.
“What about Rafael?”
Brin asked.
According to Vane, Rafael Salcedo had been Patrick’s financial lieutenant.
After Patrick’s death, Rafael seized portions of both criminal and legitimate operations.
Then he created a new identity.
Not Elias Vane’s identity.
My father’s.
“He’s been using Patrick’s credentials?”
“Some of them.”
Brin became pale.
“Why?”
Because Patrick controlled a hidden ownership structure.
A trust tied to Lakefront.
If Rafael could impersonate Patrick through historical biometric and legal records, he could access assets nobody else knew existed.
But Catherine built a safeguard.
Her daughter.
Brin.
And now our son.
“Why him?”
Brin whispered.
I didn’t know.
Then Miriam entered.
She carried the gray folder.
“We found another compartment.”
Inside was the small brass key I had overlooked.
Miriam placed it beside Brin.
“Recognize it?”
Brin did.
“My mother wore this around her neck.”
The key opened a deposit box.
We accessed it remotely under federal supervision.
Inside was one document.
A birth certificate.
Brin read it.
Then read it again.
Her face emptied.
Father:
Patrick Elias Hale.
My father.
But below it was another document.
My own birth certificate.
Father:
Patrick Elias Hale.
Brin stared at me in horror.
For one terrible second, neither of us could breathe.
Then Miriam calmly turned both pages over.
“Look at the certification stamps.”
Different.
May you like
One had been forged.
But which one?
