By the time Daniel returned to St. Matthew's, dawn had begun whitening the eastern edge of the sky.
Rebecca came with him. Evelyn remained at East Harbor speaking with police. Robert had not moved from Mara's room.
Daniel entered carrying no cedar box, no papers, no relic from Thomas. For the first time all night, his hands were empty.
Mara saw exhaustion in his face.
He bent over the bassinet and touched his son's cheek.
"Still Baby Ellison?"
Mara looked at him.
"Still Baby Ellison."
Daniel nodded.
There was no argument this time.
Rebecca entered behind him and sat near the window.
Robert looked toward her.
She did not acknowledge him.
Daniel turned to his father.
"Why was Elliot coming to this hospital?"
Robert rubbed his forehead.
"Patricia worked here before Rebecca was born."
"As what?"
"Records administration."
Mara felt a cold realization.
"Birth records."
Robert nodded.
Daniel stared.
"Mom knew how Thomas altered mine."
"Eventually."
"Did she help him?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
Robert hesitated.
Daniel closed his eyes.
"Of course."
Robert raised a hand.
"I don't think she helped forge your record."
"That's different from knowing."
"Yes."
Mara asked, "What was Elliot bringing her?"
Robert shook his head.
"I thought it was evidence against Thomas."
"Why not give it to police?"
"Because Elliot didn't trust them."
Rebecca frowned. "Why?"
"Thomas had friends in local government. Samuel knew officers through security work. Elliot believed anything he surrendered might disappear."
Daniel looked toward Mara.
"So he trusted Mom."
Robert nodded.
"Despite exposing your affair?"
"He was furious with me, not Patricia."
Mara understood.
Elliot had threatened Robert's family with truth, but that did not mean he wanted to hurt Patricia.
Daniel pulled out his phone.
"Samuel said the backpack would be where Elliot was trying to go."
Rebecca looked around the room.
"This hospital is enormous."
Mara said, "Seventeen years ago, where would Patricia have told him to leave something?"
Robert thought.
"Medical records."
Daniel shook his head.
"Too obvious."
Rebecca suddenly looked toward the door.
"Mom had a locker."
Robert frowned.
"What?"
"When she was dying, she gave me an old key ring. There was a brass key she said belonged to a staff locker she'd forgotten to clear."
"Do you still have it?"
"No. I threw the keys away after she died."
Daniel sighed.
Mara asked, "Did she tell you the locker number?"
Rebecca closed her eyes.
"Maybe."
She thought.
"Two hundred something."
Robert whispered, "214."
Everyone looked at him.
"How do you know?"
"Patricia used 214 as the PIN on our old garage door."
Rebecca stared.
"She told me it was lucky."
Robert gave a faint, sad smile.
"It was her hospital locker."
Daniel stood.
"Where were staff lockers seventeen years ago?"
Mara pressed the nurse call button.
The same nurse who had first told Mara about Evelyn entered.
Mara explained only that they were trying to locate an old staff locker connected to a deceased family member.
The nurse frowned.
"Administration used lockers in the old records wing."
"Does it still exist?"
"The wing does. Records moved years ago."
"What is there now?"
"Mostly storage."
Daniel asked, "Can we access it?"
"Not without facilities or security."
Mara looked at him.
"Then ask security."
Within twenty minutes, a hospital administrator and security supervisor arrived. Daniel explained that police were investigating evidence connected to a storage-unit burglary and that Samuel Ortega had directed them toward the hospital.
The supervisor called the investigating officer.
Permission came faster after that.
Mara could not go.
She hated it.
Daniel noticed.
"I'll call."
"Video."
"Yes."
Robert said, "I'm coming."
Daniel looked at him.
This time he nodded.
Rebecca joined them.
Mara remained with her son while their video feed moved through corridors she had never seen.
The old records wing occupied part of the basement.
Rows of beige lockers stood behind stacked chairs and unused medical equipment.
Numbers had faded from many doors.
Rebecca found 214.
A new padlock hung through the latch.
Daniel stared.
"That's not seventeen years old."
The security supervisor agreed.
"No."
Robert looked around.
"Samuel."
Daniel touched the lock.
"Recently installed?"
"Looks like it."
Security cut it.
Inside sat a black plastic case.
Nothing else.
Rebecca exhaled.
"Document case."
Daniel opened it only after the officer on the phone approved.
Inside were three sealed evidence bags.
One contained Evelyn's letter.
Another held photocopies of identity documents.
The third contained a small photograph.
No backpack.
Daniel lifted the photograph.
Mara watched through the phone.
The image had been taken through a rain-streaked windshield.
Ahead, Elliot's car was visible approaching a curve.
A vehicle followed dangerously close behind.
Only part of the second vehicle appeared.
Robert leaned closer.
"That's Evelyn's."
Rebecca shook her head.
"No."
Daniel enlarged the image on his phone after photographing it.
The vehicle looked similar to Evelyn's old sedan.
But Robert pointed toward the rear.
"Her car had a broken left taillight that month."
Both lights in the photograph were intact.
Rebecca whispered, "Mom's car?"
Robert stared.
"Same model."
Daniel looked at him.
"Patricia and Evelyn drove the same car?"
"Different years. Same model."
Mara felt the old eyewitness confusion suddenly make sense.
At night, in rain, the vehicles could easily have been mistaken for one another.
Daniel asked, "Which one had intact lights?"
Robert closed his eyes.
"Patricia's."
Silence.
Rebecca shook her head.
"But Mom's recording said Evelyn chased Elliot."
Robert looked devastated.
"Then Patricia lied."
Mara stared at the photograph.
"Or Samuel wants us to think she did."
Daniel looked toward the other evidence.
"Where's the original?"
Rebecca turned the photograph over.
Writing covered the back.
NOT ORIGINAL. FRAME FROM VIDEO.
Daniel frowned.
"Video?"
Robert whispered, "There was no traffic camera there."
Mara said, "Someone was following behind."
Daniel looked at the angle.
The photograph had indeed been captured from a vehicle behind the pursuing sedan.
"Samuel."
Rebecca stared.
"He said he was watching from across the street."
Mara nodded.
"He followed too."
Robert looked sick.
"Then he recorded everything."
Daniel searched the case.
No tape.
But there was a note.
THE VIDEO IS WITH THE BACKPACK. DO NOT TRUST A SINGLE FRAME.
Mara immediately understood.
"A still photograph can make one car look like the pursuer without showing what happened before or after."
Daniel nodded.
Samuel was forcing them toward the full record.
Rebecca opened Evelyn's letter.
Daniel stopped her.
"That's mine."
Rebecca looked at him.
"Sorry."
He took it.
Mara expected him to read immediately.
He didn't.
Instead he folded it and placed it inside his jacket.
Robert watched.
"Aren't you going to read it?"
"Not with an audience."
Mara felt something shift in him.
For once, Daniel was distinguishing privacy from secrecy.
The identity documents were next.
Daniel photographed each.
His birth certificate appeared among them.
Mother: Patricia Ellison.
Father: Robert Ellison.
A second certificate lay beneath it.
Mother: Evelyn Vale.
Father: blank.
Daniel stared.
"So Dad's name wasn't originally there."
Robert looked confused.
"I signed an acknowledgment."
Mara asked, "Was it filed?"
"I thought so."
Daniel turned another page.
A handwritten note from Thomas read:
Robert is biological father. Keep supporting affidavit separately.
Daniel looked toward his father.
"Did Thomas have DNA evidence?"
"No. This was before home tests were common."
"Then how did anyone know?"
Robert said, "Evelyn and I knew."
Evelyn and Robert had treated certainty as enough.
Daniel turned to the next document.
A laboratory report.
Dated eight years ago.
Rebecca leaned closer.
"DNA?"
Daniel read.
Probability of paternity: 0%.
Robert stopped breathing.
Mara stared through the phone.
Daniel read it again.
Robert whispered, "That's impossible."
Rebecca looked toward Daniel.
"Whose sample?"
Daniel's hand shook.
"Thomas and me."
Mara frowned.
"Thomas tested whether he was your father?"
Daniel nodded.
"And he wasn't."
Robert exhaled.
"Of course he wasn't."
Daniel turned the page.
Another report.
This one compared Daniel to a sample labeled R.E.
Probability of paternity: 0%.
No one moved.
Robert's face emptied.
"No."
Daniel stared at him.
"R.E."
Robert shook his head.
"No."
"Robert Ellison."
"No."
Mara felt her stomach tighten.
"Could it be someone else?"
Daniel checked Thomas's note.
It identified the sample.
Robert Ellison — toothbrush obtained 8/14.
Robert sat against the lockers.
"That's wrong."
Rebecca whispered, "Dad."
"It's wrong."
Daniel looked toward Mara's image.
She could see fear beneath his anger now.
If neither Thomas nor Robert was his father, another foundational fact had disappeared.
Rebecca asked, "Who else was Evelyn with?"
Robert shook his head.
"I don't know."
Daniel looked at Thomas's notes.
There was one more page.
Three initials.
T.V.
R.E.
S.O.
Daniel stared.
"Thomas Vale. Robert Ellison."
Rebecca completed it.
"Samuel Ortega."
Mara felt cold.
Daniel turned the paper over.
One sentence.
Two eliminated. One refused testing.
Robert looked toward him.
"Samuel."
Daniel whispered, "Samuel could be my father."
The hospital corridor seemed suddenly silent.
Then Mara's room door opened upstairs.
She looked away from the phone.
A man stood outside.
Older. Gray-haired. Wet jacket.
Mara had never seen him before.
He looked at the baby.
Then at Mara.
"Mrs. Ellison?"
She tightened her grip around her son.
"Who are you?"
The man slowly raised both hands.
"My name is Samuel Ortega."
Click here to continue reading: PART 15: Samuel Ortega Walked Into Mara’s Hospital Room With Elliot’s Backpack and a Paternity Secret Thomas Had Never Been Able to Prove
I Woke After the Delivery to Discover My Husband Had Made One Permanent Decision While I Was Still Unconscious
Part 14 of 20
