Chapter 10 - The Wrong Birthday
Brent stared.
“I'm older than Aaron.”
“According to your birth certificate.”
Daniel's face collapsed.
Brent slowly turned.
“Dad?”
Susan Calloway had supposedly delivered Brent in April 2007.
Hospital records showed complications.
Premature delivery.
Extended neonatal stay.
But the original file was missing.
DNA testing produced the first shock.
Daniel was Brent's biological father.
Susan was not his biological mother.
Brent looked physically sick.
“Who is?”
Henry refused to answer.
Daniel claimed he never knew.
Susan collapsed when investigators told her.
She had given birth.
Her infant son died after three days.
Daniel told her doctors had made an error on the death certificate.
Then he brought home another baby.
Brent.
Susan believed he had arranged an emergency adoption.
She raised Brent as hers.
Daniel finally admitted the truth.
Henry gave him the infant.
In exchange, Daniel continued helping conceal Hannah's death.
Brent had been leverage from infancy.
Then his true birth date emerged.
October 13, 2007.
Two days after Aaron.
His April birthday was fabricated.
Aaron stared at the classmate who had tormented him for years.
They were effectively the same age.
Their entire school history had been engineered around false records.
“Why put him in my school?”
Henry answered:
“I didn't.”
Someone else had kept the boys near each other.
Then DNA identified Brent's biological mother.
Rebecca.
Evan stared at her.
“You had two sons?”
Rebecca looked stunned.
“No.”
Medical records showed twins.
Rebecca had delivered twin boys while living under her hidden identity.
She remembered only one.
Complications required emergency surgery.
When she woke, doctors told her one baby had survived.
Evan.
The second supposedly died.
He hadn't.
Brent was taken.
Rebecca screamed at Henry.
“You stole my son!”
Henry shook his head.
“I didn't know about the twins until later.”
“LIAR!”
Investigators checked.
For once, evidence partially supported Henry.
He was hospitalized across the country when Rebecca delivered.
Someone else authorized the separation.
Daniel had received Brent through an intermediary.
Who?
A woman.
Approximately thirty.
Brown hair.
Called herself Anna.
Laura froze.
“Anna who?”
Daniel whispered:
“Anna Pierce.”
Hannah's mother.
But Hannah's mother was named Denise.
Anna Pierce did not exist.
Then Rebecca remembered.
Before Hannah died, she mentioned an aunt named Anna who helped her investigate the guardianship network.
Nobody had ever met her.
Aaron asked:
“Who was she?”
Henry's expression changed.
Fear.
Actual fear.
“I don't know.”
Rebecca stared.
“You're afraid.”
Henry whispered:
“You should be too.”
Then investigators found Michael's final encrypted archive.
One folder was named ANNA.
Inside:
A surveillance photograph.
The mysterious woman.
Laura stared.
She knew her.
“That's impossible.”
Aaron looked.
“Who?”
May you like
Laura whispered:
“My mother.”
