Chapter 4 - The Wrong NameNathan held the phone away from Vanessa so everyone could hear the silence following Charles's words.

Vanessa recovered first. “He's talking about the scandal,” she said. “You know how he exaggerates.”

“What girl?” Nathan asked.

“Not on the phone,” Charles replied. “Come to the office.”

Nathan ended the call.

For years, Charles had managed every crisis with a conference table and lawyers. Nathan had trusted the machinery because it always appeared to work. Tonight he realized that machinery could erase people.

The hospital called. Emily was stable, with injuries that required observation. She had asked specifically that Vanessa not be allowed near her or Lily.

Nathan passed the request to the officer, who took a formal statement. Vanessa wasn't arrested immediately; investigators still had witnesses to interview and evidence to secure. That did not make her safe.

Rosa came downstairs holding Lily's rabbit. The toy's belly had been cut open and resewn with crooked blue thread.

“Miss Lily asked me to hide this,” she whispered. “Said her mommy gave it to her.”

Inside was a tiny memory card wrapped in wax paper.

Nathan inserted it into an offline laptop. A video opened with Emily sitting in a room lit by a single window. Her hair was longer. She looked exhausted but determined.

“My name is Emily Hart,” she said. “If Nathan sees this, I didn't abandon him. I was told he signed papers giving up our daughter. I didn't believe it, but they showed me his signature.”

She lifted a document toward the camera.

Nathan leaned forward. The signature resembled his. The middle initial was wrong.

Emily continued, “I kept copies because I knew someone would come after us. If Lily is listening, sweetheart, you were wanted. You were always wanted.”

The recording cut off with the sound of a door opening.

Rosa wiped her eyes. “There is more,” she said. “Miss Lily told me she heard Mrs. Hale discussing a name.”

“What name?”

“Evelyn Reed.”

Nathan froze. Evelyn Reed had supposedly died with Emily in the same highway accident.

His phone vibrated. A message from Emily's hospital room read:

Evelyn is alive. She knows where the original birth certificate is.

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