Chapter 2 - The Other Lily
Victor read the photograph three times.
BABY LILLIAN VALE.
The date did not change.
Neither did the tiny child inside the incubator.
“Who is this?”
Claire said nothing.
Victor stepped closer.
“Who is this baby?”
Eleanor answered for her.
“A fake.”
Claire looked at her with open contempt.
“That's your solution?”
“Anyone can print a photograph.”
Lily moved closer to Victor.
“I saw the baby.”
That silenced everyone.
Victor crouched.
“Last night?”
Lily nodded.
“Was she downstairs?”
“Yes.”
Claire whispered:
“Oh God.”
Victor looked at her.
“You told me you were protecting her.”
“I am.”
“Then start telling the truth.”
Claire finally admitted the baby existed.
She had not given birth to her.
She was not biologically hers.
Seven months earlier, Claire had been contacted by a woman who said a child connected to the Vale family was in danger.
The woman arranged a meeting.
She never appeared.
Instead Claire found a newborn inside a private medical suite beneath the mansion.
“Beneath my house?”
Victor's voice became dangerously quiet.
Claire nodded.
The underground rooms predated her arrival.
Someone had been using them.
Claire found medical supplies.
Records.
An incubator.
And the baby.
“Why didn't you call police?”
“I did.”
“What happened?”
“The baby disappeared before they arrived.”
Victor stared.
Claire received a message the next morning.
TELL ANYONE AGAIN AND SHE DIES.
Attached was a photograph of the baby alive.
Then another message.
WE NEED A VALE HEIR.
Claire was ordered to pretend she was pregnant.
The timeline would eventually be manipulated so the hidden baby could be introduced as hers.
Victor looked disgusted.
“You obeyed?”
“I thought it bought her time.”
“For seven months?”
“I've been trying to find her.”
Eleanor laughed.
“Heroic.”
Claire turned.
“Would you like to tell him why I couldn't trust his own wife?”
Victor's gaze shifted.
Eleanor's jaw tightened.
Claire produced her phone.
Messages.
Photographs.
Coordinates.
One image showed the underground nursery.
Another showed a woman entering it.
Silver hair.
Champagne-colored coat.
Eleanor.
Victor's face became stone.
“What were you doing there?”
Eleanor stared at Claire.
Then at Lily.
Finally:
“Trying to find out who was blackmailing her.”
Claire scoffed.
“You never told me that.”
“Because I didn't trust you either.”
The room had become a circle of people who had all concealed information while claiming they were protecting someone.
Victor hated it.
“From now on, nobody decides what I should know.”
He ordered the guards to secure every exit.
Then he turned to Lily.
“You said you saw the baby last night.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In the glass room.”
Claire frowned.
“What glass room?”
Lily pointed toward the aquarium.
The hidden staircase led below the mansion.
But halfway down, Lily had seen another door Claire did not enter.
She opened it after Claire passed.
Behind it was a room illuminated blue by water filtering through the aquarium above.
A crib stood inside.
The baby was there.
Awake.
Someone sat beside her.
“Who?”
Lily looked uncomfortable.
“A lady.”
“Claire?”
“No.”
“Grandma?”
Lily shook her head.
“Did you recognize her?”
“No.”
“What did she look like?”
“Pretty.”
Eleanor rolled her eyes.
Victor ignored her.
“Hair?”
“Brown.”
“Age?”
Lily shrugged.
“Like Mommy.”
The word landed strangely.
Lily's mother, Emily, had died when Lily was two.
Victor's daughter.
His only daughter.
Claire slowly turned toward Lily.
“What did the woman say?”
“She was singing.”
Victor's face changed.
“What song?”
Lily hummed.
Four soft notes.
Victor's hand tightened around the photograph.
He knew the melody.
Emily had composed it when she was thirteen.
She sang it constantly.
Later she sang it to Lily.
Nobody outside the immediate family knew it.
Victor stepped toward the hidden aquarium panel.
Eleanor grabbed his arm.
“Don't.”
He looked down at her hand.
“Why?”
Eleanor's composure finally fractured.
“Because the woman Lily saw downstairs…”
May you like
Her voice dropped.
“…looked exactly like our dead daughter.”
