Chapter 6 - THE SISTER NOBODY TOLD ME ABOUT
I had a sister.
The words sounded impossible.
For twenty-eight years, I'd believed I was my parents' only child.
I'd grown up alone in a mansion full of employees.
I'd spent birthdays wishing for someone who understood what it meant to live under my father's rules.
And now I was staring at a photograph of a little girl who looked like me.
"Who is she?" I whispered.
Luca studied the picture.
"I don't know."
I turned it over again.
The date.
The handwriting.
My mother's message.
Nothing changed.
Rebecca carefully examined the photograph.
"There's a name written near the bottom."
I leaned closer.
A tiny handwritten note.
Grace, age five.
My throat tightened.
"Grace."
The name felt strangely familiar.
Then I remembered something.
When I was seventeen, shortly before my mother's accident, she'd told me she wanted another child.
I'd laughed.
"Mom, you're forty-two."
She'd smiled.
"Miracles don't check calendars."
I hadn't understood.
Now I wondered whether she'd already been pregnant.
But the dates didn't fit.
Grace had been five in a photograph taken six years earlier.
That made her eleven now.
If my mother disappeared eleven years ago, Grace would've been born around the time of the accident.
My heart pounded.
"She was pregnant."
Luca looked at me.
"What?"
"My mother was pregnant when she disappeared."
Rebecca nodded slowly.
"That would explain the timeline."
I covered my mouth.
My father had told me Mom died during surgery after the crash.
But what if the crash had been staged to hide her pregnancy?
What if she gave birth while someone kept her hidden?
And why would my father need to conceal another daughter?
I looked at Luca.
"Did your brother know?"
He studied the photograph.
"Possibly."
I swallowed.
"Then why didn't he tell you?"
Luca's expression darkened.
"Maybe he never got the chance."
We spent the next several hours reviewing the flash drive.
Most files contained financial evidence.
But one folder was different.
PATIENT RECORDS.
Inside were documents from a private medical facility called Willowbrook Recovery Center.
A patient named Margaret Bennett had been admitted eleven years earlier.
Another record documented the birth of a baby girl.
Grace Margaret Bennett.
I began crying.
She was real.
My sister.
Alive at least six years ago.
Then I opened the most recent document.
A transfer authorization dated eight months earlier.
Grace had been moved to another facility.
The authorization was signed by my father.
And beneath his signature was another name.
May you like
Andrew Keller.
My former fiancé.
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