Chapter 20 - The First Switch
Rachel read the sentence again.
Two switches.
Claire took the letter from her trembling hands.
“What does that mean?”
Rachel continued reading aloud.
“The switch at St. Vincent’s was not the first time Arden changed the identity of a child.”
Nobody spoke.
Thomas had written that decades before Sophie and Maya were born, Arden had already used altered hospital records to hide a baby connected to Victor Lang’s earliest genetic registry.
Elaine had switched two wristbands eight years ago.
But somebody else had changed a child’s identity long before that.
Rachel lowered the page.
“Who?”
Daniel’s phone buzzed.
A video call.
Victor.
Daniel answered.
Victor appeared inside a dark room.
Behind him sat Margaret.
Alive.
Terrified.
“You thought the hospital shooting was about the rabbit,” Victor said.
Daniel’s face hardened.
“Let her go.”
Victor ignored him.
“You thought the DNA results would tell you which little girl belonged to which mother.”
Rachel stepped closer.
“What do you want?”
Victor smiled.
“The same thing I wanted eight years ago.”
“What?”
“The third child.”
Rachel’s heart hammered.
“Who is she?”
Victor looked at Margaret.
“Ask her.”
Margaret shook her head desperately.
Victor leaned toward the camera.
“You’ve all been protecting Sophie and Lily.”
His smile widened.
“That’s why you never noticed the child who was never supposed to be in your family at all.”
Daniel whispered, “What are you talking about?”
Victor ended the call.
For several seconds the church was silent.
Then Claire looked toward Lily.
Rachel followed her gaze.
Lily sat on the floor holding Bunny.
Sophie sat beside her.
Two frightened girls.
Daniel’s family.
Rachel’s family.
Whatever blood said.
Rachel folded the letter.
“We stop asking which child belongs to who.”
Daniel looked at her.
“What do we ask?”
Rachel’s voice hardened.
“Who the third child is.”
Dunn’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“Say that again.”
Everyone stared.
Dunn lowered the phone slowly.
“What?” Daniel asked.
Dunn looked at Rachel.
“Victor’s people just broke into the county birth archive.”
Rachel felt cold.
“And?”
“They didn’t steal Sophie’s record.”
“Lily’s?”
“No.”
Dunn swallowed.
“They stole yours.”
Rachel stopped breathing.
“My birth record?”
Claire’s face went white.
Daniel whispered, “Rachel…”
Dunn nodded.
“The third baby wasn’t born eight years ago.”
Rachel stared at him.
He finished the sentence.
“She was born thirty-five years ago.”
Rachel looked down at the old hospital bracelet still in her hand.
For the first time, she understood why her father had built the entire secret around her.
The mystery had never started with Sophie.
It had started with Rachel.
And somewhere in Chicago, Victor Lang finally had the one record capable of proving who she really was.
END OF SEASON ONE.
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