Chapter 13 - Three Boys
Police surrounded Westbridge High before anyone entered.
Anna had anticipated that.
She wasn't physically inside.
The livestream was prerecorded.
Another manipulation.
But the scarf was real.
Rebecca recognized it.
Hannah wore it the night she died.
Anna had kept it for eighteen years.
Inside its hem, investigators discovered a tiny strip of microfilm.
Hannah's final evidence.
Rebecca began crying.
“Hannah hid it.”
The microfilm contained photographs of guardianship records.
Not hundreds.
Thousands.
And one page changed everything.
Rebecca Vale.
Twin male birth.
Child A: Evan.
Child B: unnamed.
Then handwritten beneath:
B TO CALLOWAY.
So Brent.
Confirmed.
But Hannah's note beside it read:
ANNA DOESN'T KNOW ABOUT CHILD C.
Rebecca stared.
“Child C?”
She had carried twins.
Not triplets.
Medical records agreed.
Then Aaron noticed the date.
The note was written before Rebecca's pregnancy.
“It's not your child.”
Child C referred to a third child involved in the replacement plan.
Aaron.
Hannah had discovered Anna's intention years before any of them were born.
But why call Aaron Child C?
Because Anna had preselected Laura and Michael as parents.
The network didn't simply react to unwanted children.
It planned future legal identities.
Aaron felt nauseated.
Then Laura found another notation:
CARRIER L.M. — UNCOOPERATIVE.
“Carrier?”
Rebecca stared.
Laura Mitchell.
But Laura had been Laura Lawson then.
Initials wrong.
Another woman.
L.M.
Who?
Michael had a younger sister.
Lauren Mitchell.
She disappeared from the family shortly before Aaron was born.
Michael told Laura that Lauren moved overseas after a family argument.
Aaron had never met her.
Police traced Lauren.
She had died three years earlier in Toronto.
Her medical history revealed something extraordinary.
Lauren had donated eggs at twenty-three.
The clinic?
Connected to Anna.
Aaron immediately requested another genetic analysis.
His DNA still proved Laura was his biological mother.
So Lauren wasn't relevant to Aaron.
But she was relevant to someone.
Brent?
No.
Rebecca.
Evan?
No.
Then they tested a stored sample belonging to Hannah.
The result arrived.
Lauren Mitchell was Hannah Pierce's biological mother.
Hannah had been adopted.
She never knew.
Michael's sister was Hannah's mother.
Suddenly Michael's devotion to Rebecca's escape looked different.
He wasn't only protecting Rebecca.
Hannah was his biological niece.
He discovered that after her death.
That was why he spent eighteen years trying to expose the truth.
Aaron whispered:
“Dad was trying to find out who killed his niece.”
Rebecca nodded.
And Hannah had died protecting Rebecca.
The families weren't merely connected by scandal.
They were tied by children moved across identities for decades.
Then Anna sent another message.
No threats.
One address.
Rebecca recognized it.
The old Lawson family house.
Demolished ten years earlier.
Except satellite records showed a newer structure on the property.
Aaron asked:
“What does she want?”
Laura answered:
“To control where we hear the truth.”
Aaron shook his head.
“Then we don't go.”
Everyone looked at him.
For once, somebody refused the dramatic trap.
They gave the address to investigators.
Police searched it.
Anna wasn't there.
But they found an archive.
May you like
And inside—
a videotape recorded by Hannah the night she died.
