Chapter 7 - THE BABY SWITCH
The federal investigators moved quickly.
They subpoenaed hospital records from three different states.
What they discovered was horrifying.
A newborn baby had disappeared from a private maternity clinic eighteen months earlier.
The mother was listed as Victoria Hayes.
The child's records had been sealed.
The father was unknown.
But the physician who signed the records was the same doctor who had administered my supposed prenatal medication.
My hands shook.
“Was my baby involved?”
“No,” the investigator assured me.
My daughter was safe.
But another baby had been used as part of Richard's plan.
Victoria had never given birth to Julian's child.
She had been paid to claim the baby belonged to him.
The real child had been taken from another woman.
A woman who had died shortly after delivery.
The baby was now living under a false identity.
And Richard had planned to present the child as his legitimate heir.
“Why?” I asked.
Rebecca answered.
“Because the child has a legal connection to an estate Richard has been trying to control.”
The estate belonged to a deceased European financier.
Its value exceeded four hundred million dollars.
Richard had forged documents claiming the baby was the financier's descendant.
It was a massive inheritance fraud.
My husband had been involved.
Victoria had been involved.
Several doctors had been involved.
And my mother had spent years trying to uncover it.
But then we learned the most shocking part.
The baby's real mother had not died.
She had survived.
She had been hidden in a long-term care facility under another name.
When investigators found her, she was weak but conscious.
Her first words were:
“Where is my son?”
The answer broke my heart.
“He's alive.”
She cried.
Then she gave investigators the name of the person who had stolen him.
Richard Vance.
The same man who had tried to take my daughter.
The same man who had manipulated Julian.
The same man who had destroyed my mother.
The case became national news.
Vance Global collapsed completely.
Banks froze accounts.
Federal agents seized properties.
Board members resigned.
But Richard disappeared.
For three days, nobody knew where he was.
Then my father received a message.
A photograph.
Richard standing outside a private airfield.
Behind him was a small plane.
And beside him stood Julian.
My heart stopped.
Julian looked directly at the camera.
His face was bruised.
His hands were bound.
Then another message arrived.
BRING THE LEDGER OR YOUR HUSBAND DIES.
My father wanted to send a tactical team.
I stopped him.
“Wait.”
Everyone stared at me.
I opened the ledger.
There was one page we hadn't examined.
A handwritten note from my mother.
It contained coordinates.
And a sentence.
Richard always returns to the place where he first buried the truth.
I recognized the location.
Our family vineyard in Napa.
I looked at my father.
“We know where he's going.”
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This time, I wasn't going to run.
I was going to end it.
