Chapter 12
Patrick leaned forward.
“What is it?”
I placed the letter on the table.
“Daniel Cross and Samuel Mercer were related.”
Beatrice opened the hospital record.
Her eyes moved quickly across the page.
Then she stopped.
“What?” Patrick asked.
She did not answer.
Her hand began to shake.
I took the document from her.
At the bottom of the admission page, beneath the false patient name and the list of injuries, someone had added a handwritten note.
Genetic match confirmed.
I read the next line.
Then I read it again.
Patrick stood.
“What does it say?”
I looked at my brother.
At the man who had survived twelve years believing he had been removed because someone feared what he knew.
The truth was different.
He had been taken because someone needed to know who he was.
“It says the test was not performed to prove Daniel Cross was your father,” I said.
Patrick’s face went still.
“Then what was it for?”
May you like
I turned the page toward him.
“To prove he was mine.”
