Chapter 7 - Lorraine’s Confession
I called my mother.
Not threatened.
Not requested.
Called.
“Come to Denver.”
“No.”
“Then I release every document I have to federal investigators.”
She arrived four hours later.
Lorraine walked into Evelyn's apartment, saw the neonatal reports, and sat without being invited.
For the first time in my life, my mother looked old.
“Tell me everything.”
She looked at Tessa.
“I did make you leave.”
Tessa said nothing.
“I believed I was protecting Grant.”
“By taking his sons?”
“I didn't know there were two.”
Lorraine knew Tessa was pregnant.
Arthur told her Tessa's Bellamy ancestry made the child potentially controlling beneficiary of the original Whitlock trust.
Lorraine feared Tessa would become a target.
She also feared Tessa herself.
“You thought I wanted money?” Tessa asked.
“Yes.”
“I was twenty-five and pregnant and terrified.”
“I know that now.”
Not apology.
But close enough for Lorraine.
Then she admitted something worse.
She arranged Tessa's disappearance.
New identity assistance.
Cash.
Housing.
Walter monitored her.
But Walter's orders were originally protective.
“Then why did he follow her yesterday?”
“I didn't send him.”
“Where is he?”
“I thought he was dead.”
Lorraine looked genuinely unsettled.
Good liars usually prepare for accusations.
That one surprised her.
I showed her Lucas's report.
She stared.
“I've never seen this.”
“Father did.”
Her expression hardened.
“Arthur had secrets before I met him.”
“What secrets?”
She looked at Evelyn.
Evelyn looked away.
That told me enough.
“Talk.”
Lorraine stood.
“When Arthur was twenty-three, he had a brother.”
I knew that.
Daniel Whitlock.
Died young.
Car accident.
“No,” Lorraine said. “Daniel didn't die.”
Of course.
Apparently nobody in my family knew how death worked.
Daniel had been institutionalized after attacking Arthur.
Why?
Lorraine didn't know.
Arthur erased him from family history.
Years later, Daniel supposedly died inside a private medical facility.
“Supposedly?”
“I never saw a body.”
Tessa whispered:
“What does that have to do with Lucas?”
Lorraine looked at the genetic report.
“Daniel and Arthur were identical twins.”
The impossible DNA result suddenly became less impossible.
Identical twins can make genetic relationships confusing.
Could Daniel—or material attributed to him—explain Lucas's report?
But Lucas still matched me as his father.
Evelyn shook her head.
“Not completely.”
Then Lorraine revealed the detail Arthur had hidden.
Daniel had a son.
Born before his disappearance.
“What happened to him?”
“Arthur said the baby died.”
Nobody believed that sentence anymore.
“Name?”
Lorraine closed her eyes.
“Walter.”
I stared.
“Walter Dane?”
“My maiden name was Dane.”
Walter wasn't merely my father's employee.
He was my cousin.
Daniel Whitlock's son.
Lorraine's nephew by marriage.
And if he had spent six years following Tessa, his interest in Lucas suddenly had another possible explanation.
My phone rang.
Mason.
“Boss, we found Walter.”
“Where?”
“Phoenix.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Bring him.”
Mason hesitated.
“He says he'll only talk if Lucas isn't there.”
“Why?”
A pause.
“Because Walter says Lucas isn't your son.”
I looked at Tessa.
Her face went white.
May you like
Mason continued.
“He says Lucas is his.”
