Chapter 10 - The Promise That Survived the TruthEllie did not cry.
That was what frightened Dominic most.
She stood in the doorway, gripping the stuffed rabbit so tightly that its seams began to split. Her eyes moved between Elena and Dominic, waiting for one of them to tell her that she had misunderstood.
“Am I still your daughter?” she asked Elena.
Elena covered her mouth.
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“But you said you don't know.”
“I don't know what happened before you came home. I don't know whether someone changed the hospital records. But I know who held you when you were sick. I know who sang to you when you couldn't sleep. I know who I searched for every morning when you wandered away in the grocery store.”
Tears slid down Elena's cheeks.
“I know who my daughter is.”
Ellie stared at her.
“Then why did you say you didn't know me?”
“Because I was afraid someone had changed your identity. I was afraid the people who wanted to destroy our family had taken even that certainty away from me.”
“Did you want a different daughter?”
Elena dropped to her knees.
“Never.”
Ellie remained still.
“Even if I'm not really yours?”
Elena held out her arms, but didn't reach for the child.
“Even then. There isn't a test in the world that could change what you mean to me.”
For a moment, Ellie seemed ready to move toward her.
Then she looked at Dominic.
“Would you still be my daddy if I wasn't your niece?”
Dominic felt as if somebody had driven a knife between his ribs.
He crouched in front of her.
“Ellie, you asked me to be your daddy for one day because you wanted someone to help you ride a bicycle. You didn't ask to become part of a family secret. You didn't ask to be chased by dangerous men.”
He gently took the stuffed rabbit from her hands and repaired its torn ribbon with a small piece of thread from his pocket.
“You don't have to prove that you belong here.”
She studied his face.
“Even if the test says I'm not family?”
“Even then.”
“Even if I don't have any money?”
Dominic almost laughed, but the tears in her eyes stopped him.
“Especially then.”
Ellie finally stepped forward.
He opened his arms, and she folded herself against him.
She was so small that he could feel her whole body trembling.
“I'm scared,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“What if everybody changes their mind about me?”
Dominic held her more tightly.
“Then everybody can answer to me.”
Elena gave a broken laugh through her tears.
It was the first sound resembling happiness that Dominic had heard from her in seven years.
For a moment, the three of them sat together on the floor, surrounded by expensive furniture and unfinished questions.
Then Marco appeared in the doorway.
“Boss. I need you downstairs.”
Dominic glanced at Ellie.
“Can you stay with your mother?”
Ellie hesitated before looking at Elena.
Elena held out her hand.
“Just for a little while, sweetheart.”
Ellie took it.
Dominic followed Marco into the office.
A technician sat at the desk with a laptop open. Beside him lay a collection of hospital records, scanned documents, and photographs.
“We examined the report Elena brought in,” Marco said. “The clinic that issued it closed six years ago. Its medical database was destroyed.”
“Can you verify the document?”
“Not yet. But we found the doctor named in the report. He didn't die, as the clinic records claimed. He's been living under another name in Connecticut.”
Dominic leaned over the desk.
“Bring him here.”
The technician turned the laptop around.
A security image appeared on the screen.
It showed a man entering the mansion through the west service entrance earlier that morning. He was carrying the delivery box used during the security breach.
His face was clearly visible.
Dominic recognized him.
Dr. Samuel Shaw.
The physician who had overseen Elena's delivery.
The same man who had supposedly died years earlier.
Marco enlarged the photograph.
“There's something else. Shaw was seen meeting Victor yesterday.”
Dominic stared at the screen.
The birth records hadn't simply been lost.
Someone had been changing them.
And the man responsible for delivering Ellie into the world might be the only person alive who knew whose child she really was.
At midnight, the mansion's telephone rang.
Margaret answered it and immediately called Dominic.
A distorted voice spoke through the receiver.
“Tell the girl that her real father is waiting.”
Dominic grabbed the phone.
“Who is this?”
The caller chuckled.
“Ask her about the lullaby.”
Then the line went dead.
Dominic turned toward the staircase.
From upstairs, he heard Elena singing softly.
The melody was unfamiliar, but Ellie was crying.
May you like
And as Dominic listened, he realized Elena wasn't singing to comfort her daughter.
She was singing a warning.
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