Chapter 2 - Shadows of the Past
The private floor of St. Jude’s Medical Center was locked down tight. Security personnel in sharp gray suits stood guard at every elevator bank and stairwell door. Inside the VIP suite, the atmosphere was quiet, sterile, and tense.
Dr. Aris Vance, Clare’s long-time personal physician and confidant, stepped out of the examination room, pulling off his latex gloves. He looked tired, his eyes heavy behind his wire-rimmed glasses.
Clare, who had been pacing the carpeted corridor for two hours, paced toward him instantly. "Aris? How are they?"
"They are resting, Clare," Dr. Vance said softly. "I gave them a mild sedative to help them sleep. They were severely dehydrated, malnourished, and suffering from early stages of heat exhaustion. The cuts on their feet were infected, but we’ve cleaned them up and started them on antibiotics."
"And... the DNA test?" Clare asked, her hands shaking as she clasped them together. "Did you run the expedited cheek swabs?"
Dr. Vance paused, looking at her with a mix of deep sympathy and professional caution. "The lab is processing it right now. Because you requested maximum priority, we’ll have the initial genetic mapping in less than an hour. But Clare... as a doctor and your friend, I have to ask you to prepare yourself."
"Prepare myself?" Clare snapped, her voice tight with tension. "Aris, I saw the mark! I know my own daughter’s body! That mark isn't just a birthmark, it's a specific genetic anomaly—a dark crescent with a tiny nevus at the tip. The odds of another child having that exact shape in that exact location are one in ten million!"
"I know," Vance said gently. "But there are two of them, Clare. You gave birth to one baby six years ago."
Clare froze. The room felt suddenly too cold.
When Clare had gone into labor six years ago at the private Lauron Clinic in Malibu, she had been heavily sedated due to severe preeclampsia. When she woke up, she was told she had given birth to a healthy baby girl named Maya. Three months later, Maya was stolen from her crib in the middle of the night.
She had never given birth to twins. Or had she?
Before Clare could voice the dark, terrifying thoughts swirling in her mind, the double doors at the end of the hallway clicked open. Marcus Vance—no relation to the doctor, but the head of Clare’s private intelligence and security firm—strode down the hall. He was a broad-shouldered man with a scarred jaw and eyes that saw everything. He carried a thick leather folder under his arm.
"Boss," Marcus said, stopping beside her. "We tracked down the camp."
"Where?" Clare asked instantly.
"Under the Santa Monica freeway overpass near 4th Street. It’s a homeless encampment. We found the tent where the girls were staying."
"And the woman?" Clare’s heart beat frantically. "The woman they called Mama?"
Marcus hesitated. He opened the folder and pulled out a worn, laminated driver's license. "Her name was Sarah Jenkins. Boss... she died three days ago. Her body was taken to the county morgue yesterday morning. Overdose, according to the preliminary coroner report. The kids were left alone in that camp for forty-eight hours."
Clare covered her mouth with her hand, suppressing a cry. Those poor babies had been sleeping beside a body, waiting for help, and when none came, they took a rusted cart onto the streets to try and buy medicine for a mother who was already gone.
"There's more," Marcus added, his voice dropping into a dark register. "Sarah Jenkins wasn't just a random woman living on the street. I ran her face through our internal database. Ten years ago, Sarah Jenkins worked as a senior night nurse at the Malibu Women's Clinic."
Clare felt as if the floor had dropped beneath her feet. "The clinic where I gave birth?"
"Yes," Marcus said flatly. "And I dug deeper into her financial records before her life fell apart. Five years ago, several large, anonymous wire transfers were made into an offshore account in her name. Totaling nearly two million dollars."
"Who sent the money?" Clare demanded, her fists tightening so hard her nails bit into her palms. "Marcus, who paid her?!"
Before Marcus could answer, a nurse stepped out of the laboratory room down the hallway, holding a sealed digital tablet. She handed it to Dr. Vance.
Dr. Vance tapped the screen, his eyes scanning the fast-moving bar graphs and genetic sequence codes. Slowly, his eyes widened. He looked up at Clare, his expression transformed by absolute bewilderment and shock.
"Aris," Clare whispered, terrifyingly close to tears again. "What does it say?"
"The DNA match between you and Lily is 99.9%," Dr. Vance said, his voice trembling. "She is your biological daughter."
Clare dropped her face into her hands, weeping tears of overwhelming relief. "My baby... my Maya..."
"Wait, Clare," Dr. Vance said, holding up a hand. "You need to hear the rest. The DNA match between you and Rose... is also 99.9%."
Clare lifted her head, stunned. "What?"
"They are identical twins," Dr. Vance explained, his voice hushed. "Clare... six years ago, you didn't give birth to one baby. You gave birth to two. Someone at that clinic hid the second child, declared her non-existent, and then later... stole the first one too."
A cold, lethal silence settled over the hospital corridor.
Clare stood up straight. The tears vanished from her eyes, replaced by a dark, terrible clarity. Her entire life's wealth, her power, her resources—it had all been built for this moment. Someone had torn her family apart, stolen her twin daughters, thrown them into the gutter to suffer, and left her to bleed emotionally for six years.
"Marcus," Clare said softly.
"Yes, Boss?"
"Find out who authorized Sarah Jenkins' access to my delivery room six years ago. Find out who owned that clinic. And bring me every name involved."
"I already looked into the clinic's ownership, Clare," Marcus said, pulling another document from his folder. "The Malibu Women's Clinic was owned by a healthcare conglomerate called Apex Medical."
"Who owns Apex?"
Marcus met her eyes with a grave, heavy stare. "Apex Medical is a subsidiary of Vance-Creswell Holdings. The CEO is Julian Creswell."
May you like
Clare stared at him. Julian Creswell. Her former fiancé. The man who had comforted her when her baby was stolen six years ago, the man who had tried to convince her to move on, and the man whose bank building her daughters had been pushed away from just hours ago.
"Julian," Clare whispered, a bitter, vicious smile touching her lips. "It was you."
