Chapter 4 - The Other Baby
The second child was named Grace Holloway.
Born seventeen minutes after Lily.
Same hospital.
Same maternity floor.
Same night.
But Amelia’s letter did not claim a baby swap.
It warned Ethan not to make that assumption.
If you're reading this, your mother has probably turned a laboratory result into a story. Don't let her. Find Grace first.
Ethan did.
Grace Holloway was alive.
Seven years old.
Living forty miles away with her mother, Sarah.
Ethan did not arrive with accusations.
He told Sarah only that he was investigating an irregularity involving hospital records.
Sarah immediately became nervous.
That mattered.
Then she said:
“I knew someone would come eventually.”
Ethan's heart pounded.
“Why?”
Sarah retrieved a hospital bracelet.
It read:
BABY CARTER.
Amelia’s surname.
Sarah had found it in Grace’s newborn belongings after leaving the hospital.
She contacted the hospital.
They dismissed it as a packaging error.
She kept it.
Ethan looked at Grace playing in the garden.
Dark hair.
Brown eyes.
She looked nothing like Amelia.
Neither did Lily strongly.
Physical resemblance proved little.
Ethan requested proper DNA testing with Sarah’s consent.
Results took two days.
Grace was Sarah Holloway’s biological daughter.
No swap.
Then Lily’s maternity test was repeated using verified samples.
Result:
Amelia Carter was Lily’s biological mother.
The old report was false.
Another dramatic mystery collapsed.
Eleanor had spent years acting on bad evidence.
Who created it?
The private laboratory listed on the report had closed.
Its former director, Dr. Malcolm Reed, remembered Eleanor.
“She didn't ask me whether Amelia was the mother.”
“What?”
“She brought two unlabeled samples and asked whether they were maternally related.”
One sample was Lily.
The other was supposedly Amelia.
But Eleanor had collected Amelia’s sample herself.
There was no chain of custody.
The sample could belong to anyone.
Ethan realized Eleanor had interpreted her own mistake as proof of a conspiracy.
Yet that did not explain the man upstairs.
Nor why Eleanor had almost killed Lily.
Police released Eleanor pending formal charges because investigators needed cooperation.
Ethan met her with Richard present.
“Whose sample did you give the laboratory?”
Eleanor stared at the floor.
“I thought it was Amelia’s.”
“Where did you get it?”
“Her hairbrush.”
That explained everything.
The hair could have belonged to someone else.
Housekeeper.
Stylist.
Visitor.
Eleanor had built seven years of suspicion from contaminated evidence.
Richard looked at her with exhausted disbelief.
“You hated a child because you performed your own incompetent DNA test?”
“No.”
Eleanor looked up.
“I hated what she represented.”
“What?”
“Amelia lied to us.”
“About what?”
Eleanor’s eyes moved toward Ethan.
“About why she married you.”
Ethan almost dismissed it.
Then Eleanor produced an old bank statement.
Six months before Ethan met Amelia, Amelia received $200,000.
Sender hidden through a trust.
Two weeks after Lily was born, another $300,000.
The trust administrator:
Richard Whitmore.
Ethan slowly turned toward his father.
Richard's expression changed.
“You paid my wife?”
Richard said nothing.
“Before she even met me?”
Still nothing.
Ethan understood Eleanor’s obsession differently.
She had not randomly hated Amelia.
She had discovered secret payments between her husband and future daughter-in-law.
Then Lily was born.
Then Richard became fiercely protective of the child.
Eleanor concluded something ugly.
Perhaps Lily was Richard’s.
The paternity test disproved that.
But the secret payments remained.
“Why did you pay Amelia?”
Richard answered:
“I didn't.”
“The trust is yours.”
“It was.”
“Who had authority to use it?”
Richard hesitated.
Eleanor whispered:
“Tell him.”
May you like
Richard looked at his son.
“Your brother.”
