Chapter 16 - The poisoned archive
The morning sun brought no warmth through the grand leaded glass windows of the estate study. Maya sat at the long conference table beside Garrett, surrounded by physical ledger books dating back two decades, brought up from the subterranean vault beneath the estate.
Margaret sat between them, her voice clearer now, though every sentence seemed to carry an unbearable weight. "Twenty-four years ago, before your father expanded Weston Enterprises internationally, our first child died at birth," Margaret said, her voice trembling as she looked at Garrett. "Or at least... that was what Harlan Vance and Dr. Julian Vance told us in the delivery wing at St. Jude's."
Garrett froze, his hand hovering over an open ledger. "What are you saying, Mother?"
"Your father was devastated," Margaret continued, looking down at her intertwined fingers. "Six months later, through Vance’s private legal channels, we adopted you, Garrett. We loved you from the very second you were placed in our arms. You became our whole world, our rightful heir in every way that mattered."
"And the locket?" Maya asked gently, sensing the darker undercurrent of the confession.
"Five years before your father passed," Margaret whispered, looking straight at Maya, "he found a secret medical invoice hidden within Harlan Vance’s retaining fees. The baby girl... our firstborn child... did not die of respiratory failure. Dr. Julian Vance had falsified the death certificate and arranged an illegal private placement to cover up an institutional malpractice settlement that would have destroyed his medical license. Your father spent his final years searching for that child in secret, logging every clue into that registry inside the silver locket."
Garrett stood up, his face pale with shock. "Arthur and Vance knew this? All along?"
"They realized your father was close to finding her," Margaret said, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "When your father suffered that sudden 'heart failure' five years ago, Vance took over the trust management. And when I began asking questions last autumn, Madison suddenly appeared in our social circle, pushed toward you by Arthur Weston. Madison’s role was to monitor me, keep me weak with those dreadful drops, and make sure I never opened that safe to read the final registry update your father had slipped inside."
Maya’s mind raced through the digital ledgers she had analyzed the previous night. She suddenly pulled the laptop toward her, typing furiously into the personnel databases of St. Jude’s Hospital from twenty-four years ago.
"The head nurse who signed the transfer log that night," Maya said, her voice shaking slightly as she pointed to a digitized microfiche file. "Her name was Evelyn Ward. That was my grandmother’s sister. She raised me after my mother died in the county ward."
May you like
Garrett looked at Maya, his breath catching in his throat.
"My grandmother gave me an identical crest when I was ten," Maya whispered, her heart pounding violently against her ribs. "She told me it was the only thing my mother had left behind when she was abandoned on the steps of the municipal shelter."
