Chapter 13 - Rachel's Real Father
Rachel stared at the photograph until her hands began shaking.
"No."
The date on the image was eighteen months before Rachel's birth.
There were more pictures.
Susan and Richard at a cabin.
Susan sitting in Richard's truck.
A hotel receipt with both names handwritten on the back.
Daniel felt the floor disappear under him all over again.
"Are you saying my father was Rachel's father?"
Ortiz raised a hand. "We are saying there was a relationship. DNA will answer the rest."
Margaret looked as if she'd been struck.
"Richard had affairs," she whispered. "I knew there were women. I never knew about Susan."
Rachel's face hardened. "Call my mother."
Susan Hale arrived two hours later, furious and frightened.
The moment she saw the photograph, she stopped pretending.
"I was twenty-three," she said. "Richard was older. Married. Powerful. Stupid story."
Rachel's voice was ice. "Was he my father?"
Susan looked at Daniel, then back at her daughter.
"I don't know."
"That's a lie."
"I truly don't know."
"Thomas?"
Susan laughed bitterly. "Thomas was never your father. He helped me disappear from Richard."
Daniel stepped forward. "Why would my father want you gone?"
Susan looked ashamed. "Because I got pregnant."
Rachel covered her mouth.
"Richard wanted me to terminate it. I refused. Thomas helped me leave the state. Years later, when you and Rachel started dating, he recognized your name. He panicked."
Daniel understood.
Thomas had disappeared from Rachel's life when she was fourteen because he had discovered who Daniel was.
"He was trying to keep us apart."
Susan nodded.
"But he never told me why."
Daniel's voice rose. "Everyone decided what I was allowed to know. Everyone."
Susan flinched.
The DNA result came back before sunset.
Richard Cross was not Rachel's father.
A collective breath left the room.
But the lab found a close paternal match to a sample from another old case.
Ortiz laid out the report.
"Rachel's biological father was a man named Aaron Bell."
Susan went pale.
"Aaron?"
"You know him?"
"He was a nurse at St. Matthew's. I dated him before Richard. He died in 1998."
Ortiz nodded. "Officially, he died in a car accident."
Evelyn whispered, "No."
Everyone looked at her.
She knew the name.
"Aaron helped women at the hospital when babies were being moved. Michael trusted him."
Daniel saw the shape of it.
"Richard killed him too?"
Evelyn shook her head.
"Thomas did."
A crash sounded in the hallway.
An officer shouted.
Then the lights went out.
Emergency alarms began flashing red.
Ortiz drew her weapon.
"Everyone down!"
A gunshot cracked from the stairwell.
When the lights came back thirty seconds later, Evelyn's chair was empty.
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On the wall behind it, written in black marker, were four words:
SHE WAS NEVER A HOSTAGE.
