Chapter 7 - The Other Emily
I had always believed my name came from Grandma’s favorite aunt.
Dad finally told me the truth.
I was named after Eleanor’s missing daughter.
A cousin I never knew existed.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Because after Eleanor disappeared, my parents stopped talking about her.”
“And her daughter?”
“I didn’t know she existed until years later.”
Dad discovered it after his father died.
By then, Eleanor and her daughter had vanished.
Grandma apparently knew more.
The underground room proved it.
Sheriff Brooks searched the photographs.
Dates stretched across decades.
Eleanor lived in Tennessee.
Colorado.
Oregon.
Then Virginia again.
Someone had followed her.
Hawthorne investigators.
Grandma’s investigators.
But was Grandma protecting Eleanor or hunting her?
Then Lily’s doctor called.
My daughter had developed a fever.
Everything else disappeared.
I ran upstairs.
Her temperature was 100.8.
For most children, manageable.
For Lily, eleven days after transplant, terrifying.
Her transplant team ordered immediate evaluation.
An ambulance arrived.
I rode with her.
Mom watched from beside the sheriff’s vehicle.
For once, she said nothing.
At the hospital, Lily was isolated.
Tests began.
Nathan—my ex-husband and Lily’s father—arrived from Richmond.
He had been away on a work project.
He hugged Lily through protective gear and then turned to me.
“What happened?”
I told him enough.
Not everything.
Nobody had enough hours for everything.
Then a doctor entered.
Lily’s fever might be a routine complication.
Or infection.
We had to wait.
I sat beside her all night.
At 2:13 a.m., my phone received a message.
Unknown number.
YOUR DAUGHTER ISN’T SAFE AT ST. MATTHEW’S.
I stared.
Another arrived.
ASK WHO ACCESSED HER TRANSPLANT FILE.
I immediately called security.
Samantha contacted the hospital.
Audit logs showed Lily’s electronic medical record had been accessed improperly three times.
By an administrative account.
The employee assigned to that account denied doing it.
Security footage showed someone entering the records office using a temporary badge.
A woman.
Late sixties.
Silver hair.
Not Mom.
The image was grainy.
Dad saw it by video call.
He stopped breathing.
“Eleanor.”
His sister.
Alive.
Inside Lily’s hospital.
Why?
Then a nurse entered carrying an envelope.
“This was left at the front desk for you.”
Inside was a handwritten note:
Emily,
Margaret is dangerous, but she isn’t the reason Lily’s trust exists.
Evelyn created it because she knew this would happen again.
I read the sentence twice.
Again?
The note continued:
Your daughter’s illness is not the first medical crisis in this family connected to that money.
If you want the truth, find the original bone-marrow donor records from 1988.
My birth year.
I looked through the isolation-room glass at Lily.
Then called Samantha.
“Find everything about 1988.”
She went silent.
“Emily…”
“What?”
“You were hospitalized in 1988.”
I frowned.
“I was a baby.”
“No.”
May you like
She had found an old insurance record.
“You were treated for the same rare blood disorder Lily had before her transplant.”
