Chapter 3 - The Daughter Robert Never Had
DNA testing should have simplified everything.
Instead, it made the mystery worse.
Claire was related to Robert.
The preliminary result showed a first-degree relationship consistent with daughter.
Emma sat in silence.
Claire sat opposite her.
Robert stood by the window.
Nobody knew where to look.
Emma finally laughed.
One exhausted, disbelieving sound.
“My husband's mistress is my sister.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“I didn't know.”
“You knew there was a Whitmore connection.”
“Yes.”
“You still slept with him.”
“Yes.”
Claire refused to soften it.
That made Emma angrier and, strangely, made listening possible.
“Why?”
Claire had approached Victor deliberately.
Not initially to become his mistress.
Her mother's box contained financial records showing Victor had been searching for W-17.
The same trust named in the transfer contract.
Claire believed Victor knew something about her parentage.
She met him.
Flirted.
Asked questions.
Then the relationship became real.
Or at least physical.
“That doesn't excuse it.”
“I know.”
Emma turned to Robert.
“If she's your daughter, why did Mom write that you could never know?”
Robert looked devastated.
“Because I never had a relationship with Anna.”
The DNA said Claire was his daughter.
But Robert had never slept with Claire's mother.
Then Claire was not conceived conventionally.
Miriam's IVF records became critical.
Robert's reproductive material had been stored with the embryos.
Someone could have created another embryo.
But why would Miriam hide that from him?
Robert remembered an argument.
Weeks before the fire.
Miriam told him:
“I fixed what you wouldn't.”
At the time he thought she meant business.
Now he wondered.
Emma asked:
“What was W-17?”
Robert finally explained.
Whitmore Seventeen.
A private family trust established by Robert's father.
It controlled far more than Whitmore House.
Land.
Patents.
Medical investments.
Estimated current value:
$640 million.
Emma stared.
“You told me the estate barely broke even.”
“I wanted you to build your own life.”
“You lied.”
“Yes.”
Again, honesty without defense.
W-17 transferred automatically when a specific condition was met:
two living biological daughters of Robert Whitmore had to jointly acknowledge inheritance.
Emma understood.
“Me and Claire.”
“Yes.”
That explained the forged signatures.
Someone needed both daughters on paper.
But why force Emma if Claire's signature could also be forged?
Because the trust required biometric verification from one heir.
Emma's handprint.
The black restraint frame had not simply been torture.
It contained a scanner.
Emma's blood went cold.
The guards had been tightening her hand against a biometric plate.
The signature was theater.
Her hand was the key.
Victor had known?
Claire stared.
“I didn't.”
Emma looked at her.
“You threatened me.”
Claire's eyes filled.
“I thought the frame was just a restraint.”
“You said, ‘Sign—or leave your hand here.’”
“I was trying to scare you.”
“And that's supposed to help?”
“No.”
Claire looked sick.
“I was awful. But I didn't know there was a scanner.”
Robert examined photographs police had taken.
Embedded beneath the wooden frame:
a thin optical plate.
Claire was telling the truth about that part.
Then the hospital door opened.
A detective entered.
“We found something in Victor's phone.”
Emma braced.
A message received ten minutes before Robert burst into the study.
GET HER HAND ON THE FRAME.
Victor replied:
AND THEN CLAIRE?
May you like
The unknown sender answered:
CLAIRE ALREADY BELONGS TO US.
