Chapter 8 - What my mother buried
My mother had worked for Whitmore Biotech.
So had I.
Technically.
I was an infant.
Harrison Whitmore had been my godfather.
My mother showed me photographs.
Harrison holding me.
Walter standing behind him.
Our families had once been close.
Then Harrison discovered Walter was diverting company funds.
Before he could expose him, Harrison died from a sudden heart attack.
The investigation found nothing criminal.
Walter later purchased valuable patents from the collapsing company through intermediaries.
My mother always believed he'd engineered the collapse.
But she couldn't prove it.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because Walter didn't know who I was when you met Elmer.”
She feared revealing the connection would destroy my marriage.
Again.
Silence masquerading as protection.
Then came the strangest revelation.
Adrian Whitmore knew who I was.
He'd learned I married Walter's son.
Years later, when investigating missing fertility samples, he discovered one might have been used during my treatment.
He didn't contact me.
Why?
Because he couldn't prove which patient received it.
Until Walter began conducting private DNA tests on Louisa.
Walter had apparently discovered the truth first.
Not that Louisa wasn't his granddaughter.
That she was Harrison Whitmore's biological granddaughter.
The descendant of the man Walter had betrayed.
Suddenly Lydia's hatred made sense differently.
Louisa wasn't merely a child she disliked.
She was living proof of a family Walter feared.
But the anonymous photographs?
Not Lydia.
Not Heather.
Not Elmer.
Then Adrian contacted me directly.
“Mrs. Mercer, I've been trying to protect your daughter.”
“By stalking us?”
“That wasn't me.”
“Then who photographed the hotel?”
He hesitated.
“You need to leave immediately.”
“Why?”
“Because Walter isn't trying to identify Louisa anymore.”
A pause.
May you like
“He's trying to make sure nobody else does.”
Then the hotel fire alarm began screaming.
