Chapter 12 - The Voice Anna Left Behind
The message contained audio.
Maria nearly dropped the phone when she heard it.
Anna’s voice.
“Maria, if Lily starts asking questions, take her away from the Coles.”
Maria began sobbing.
Ethan listened twice.
Then a forensic analyst stopped him.
“It’s old.”
Not artificial.
Not generated.
A real recording of Anna.
But edited.
Different sentences stitched together.
Someone possessed Anna’s private recordings.
Who?
Maria had Anna’s phone after her death.
It disappeared from the hospital property room.
Security logs showed it was collected by “family.”
Signature:
M. Alvarez.
Maria.
She stared.
“I never collected it.”
Forgery.
The person who took Anna’s phone knew Maria’s name.
Knew the family.
Knew the crash.
Then Lily said something strange.
“The lady has Mommy Anna’s phone.”
Everyone turned.
“How do you know?”
“She showed me pictures.”
Celeste?
Lily shook her head.
“Not the medicine lady.”
A second woman had approached Lily.
At preschool.
Once.
“She said she was Mommy Anna’s friend.”
“What did she look like?”
Lily struggled.
Four-year-old descriptions were unreliable.
“Yellow hair.”
Blonde.
“Old?”
Lily shook her head.
“Like Mommy.”
Maria went still.
Anna had one best friend.
Rebecca Lane.
No one had mentioned her because Rebecca supposedly died with Anna.
The crash had two occupants.
Anna died at the scene.
The passenger was badly burned and identified as Rebecca through belongings and dental records.
Two women dead.
Except investigators reopened the file.
The dental identification had been supplied by a private dentist.
Dr. Aaron Sloan.
Marianne Sloan’s brother.
Police exhumed the passenger.
DNA did not match Rebecca Lane’s surviving mother.
The woman buried as Rebecca was someone else.
Rebecca was alive.
Who was the dead passenger?
DNA database comparison identified her:
Melissa Grant.
A former employee of the Reed fertility clinic.
The same technician who originally processed Embryo 6.
The story changed again.
Anna had not simply crashed with a friend.
She was traveling with someone connected directly to Lily’s creation.
Rebecca’s belongings had been placed on Melissa’s body.
Someone wanted Rebecca declared dead.
Why?
Police found Rebecca forty-eight hours later.
She had been living under another name.
Rachel Moore.
She did not resist.
When Ethan entered the interview room, Rebecca stared at him.
“You look exactly like Sophie described.”
“You knew Sophie?”
Rebecca nodded.
“Better than Margaret ever knew.”
“What does that mean?”
Rebecca looked toward the mirror.
“Sophie asked me to make sure Embryo 6 was destroyed.”
Silence.
“Were you working at the clinic?”
“No.”
“Then why you?”
“Because she didn't trust her father.”
Rebecca had been Sophie’s closest friend.
Sophie discovered Malcolm created the embryo without her permission.
She asked Rebecca to witness its destruction.
Malcolm falsified the procedure.
Years later Rebecca learned the embryo still existed.
Then Margaret transferred it to Anna.
Rebecca found Anna during pregnancy.
At first she intended to expose everything.
Then she met her.
Anna already knew.
Not all of it.
But enough.
“She chose to carry Lily?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Rebecca’s eyes filled.
“Because Sophie had once saved her life.”
Ethan frowned.
Anna and Sophie had met?
No one had ever told him.
May you like
Rebecca whispered:
“They were sisters.”
