Chapter 19 - The Other BabyEmily read the words again and again until they stopped looking real.
Emily and her twin, born before dawn.
The greenhouse sounds faded. Hammering. Glass cutting. Workers talking. Daniel saying her name.
Twin.
Emily had spent months learning she was not who she thought she was. Richard’s daughter. Clara’s hidden child. Daniel’s sister. The beneficiary of a trust. The woman Vanessa tried to destroy. The truth Margaret feared.
But twin was different.
Twin meant she had not entered the world alone.
Twin meant somewhere there had been another baby.
Another life.
Another secret.
Daniel took the photograph gently. “We need Henry.”
Emily’s voice barely worked. “My mother never told me.”
“Maybe she couldn’t.”
The possibility was worse.
Henry arrived within the hour. Rose came too, leaning on a cane now. Evelyn sat quietly beside Tom in the study. The photograph lay on Richard’s desk like a bomb disguised as memory.
Rose looked at it and covered her mouth.
Emily saw the reaction.
“You knew,” she whispered.
Rose began crying. “I suspected.”
Emily felt the room tilt. “Suspected?”
Rose reached for her hand, but Emily pulled away.
“No,” Emily said. “Do not soften this. Did I have a twin?”
Rose nodded.
Daniel closed his eyes.
Tom muttered, “This family never runs out of knives.”
Emily stared at Rose. “What happened?”
Rose trembled. “Clara gave birth in secret outside Boston. Two girls. You were stronger. The other baby was very small. Clara named her Elise.”
Emily pressed a hand to her chest.
Elise.
A name she had never heard but somehow felt like an echo.
“Did she die?” Emily asked.
Rose looked down.
“I do not know.”
Emily’s anger rose. “How can you not know?”
“Because Margaret found Clara within days.”
Daniel snapped his head up. “After the birth?”
Rose nodded. “Elliot was with her. They offered Clara money to surrender both babies. Clara refused. There was a struggle. I helped Clara escape with one child.”
Emily’s voice shook. “Me.”
“Yes.”
“And Elise?”
Rose broke down. “Elliot took her.”
The room went cold.
Daniel stood. “My God.”
Emily stepped back from everyone.
All these months, she had thought the stolen life was hers alone. But there had been another baby, smaller, weaker, taken before her name could become real.
“Margaret had my sister,” Emily said.
Henry’s face was pale. “If Elise survived, she may have been adopted under another identity.”
Tom looked at Henry. “Or hidden like me.”
Emily turned toward Daniel. “Margaret knows.”
Daniel nodded grimly. “Yes.”
The next day, Emily went to the prison.
Daniel wanted to come. She refused.
Some truths had to be faced without someone standing in front of her.
Margaret entered the visitation room wearing a beige prison uniform. Without pearls, without tailored suits, without the mansion behind her, she looked older but not weaker.
She smiled when she saw Emily.
“I wondered when you would find her,” Margaret said.
Emily sat slowly.
Her blood turned ice.
“So Elise lived.”
Margaret’s smile deepened. “Did Rose finally remember the name?”
Emily leaned forward. “Where is my sister?”
Margaret folded her hands. “Why would I give you that?”
“Because she is innocent.”
“Innocence has never protected anyone in our family.”
Emily forced herself not to react.
Margaret studied her. “You look more like Clara when you are angry.”
“Do not say her name.”
“I knew her before you did.”
Emily’s voice turned cold. “You feared her before I did.”
Margaret’s expression tightened.
Emily placed the photograph against the glass.
“Elise,” she said. “Where is she?”
Margaret looked at the picture.
For a moment, something almost human crossed her face.
Then it vanished.
“I did not raise her,” she said.
“Who did?”
“A family that wanted a child and knew when to be grateful.”
“Name.”
Margaret leaned closer.
“Give me back the house,” she said.
Emily laughed once in disbelief. “No.”
“Restore my legal defense fund.”
“No.”
“Withdraw the civil claims against my estate.”
“No.”
Margaret’s eyes hardened. “Then your sister remains a ghost.”
Emily stood.
Margaret smiled. “Leaving already?”
Emily looked down at her.
“You made one mistake,” she said.
Margaret arched a brow.
“You taught me where to look when someone hides a child.”
The smile faded.
Emily left without another word.
Back at the mansion, she gathered everyone in the archive room.
“We search the payments,” she said. “Margaret paid to hide Thomas. She may have paid to hide Elise.”
Henry nodded. “Trust accounts, medical records, attorney transfers, adoption intermediaries.”
Tom stood. “I will help.”
Daniel added, “So will I.”
Rose cried quietly. “I am sorry, Emily.”
Emily looked at her.
She was angry.
But anger no longer needed to become cruelty.
“I know,” Emily said. “But sorry cannot find her.”
For two weeks, they searched.
Old ledgers. Adoption records. Church donations. Payments from shell accounts connected to Elliot Crane. Most trails went nowhere.
Then Mrs. Whitaker found the clue.
Not in a legal file.
In Margaret’s old party book.
A list of gifts sent after a private adoption celebration twenty-six years earlier.
One entry was circled.
To the Carsons, for baby Elizabeth.
A silver rattle, engraved E.W.
Emily stared at the initials.
E.W.
Elise Waverly.
Daniel searched the Carson family immediately.
There were several.
One stood out.
A wealthy couple from Connecticut who adopted a baby girl around the right time. The father had business ties to Elliot Crane. The daughter’s name was Elizabeth Carson.
Now thirty-one.
A pediatric surgeon in Chicago.
Emily found her hospital profile online.
The photo loaded slowly.
When it appeared, Emily stopped breathing.
The woman on the screen had her face.
Not similar.
Not close.
Hers.
Tom whispered, “Well, damn.”
Daniel’s eyes filled with tears.
May you like
Emily touched the screen.
“Elise.”
