Chapter 20 - The Unopened File
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My heart hammered against my ribs as I lifted the heavy lid of the fireproof box.
Inside lay a thick manila folder tied with a faded red ribbon, along with an old, yellowed hospital birth certificate from thirty-one years ago.
I picked up the birth certificate first.
The mother's name listed was not Amanda Wellman.
The mother's name was Eleanor Vance—the late sister of Detective Vance, who had died in a hospice wing thirty-one years ago.
My breath caught in my throat. My hands trembled violently as I untied the red ribbon on the folder.
Inside was a secret adoption record and a confidential medical file.
I wasn't Amanda's biological daughter.
I was the daughter of Eleanor Vance, taken from the hospital thirty-one years ago by Dr. Richard Hayes and Amanda after my biological mother died under mysterious circumstances during childbirth.
Amanda hadn't raised me out of love or obligation.
She had kept me as an insurance policy—a living pawn to secure my biological mother's vast family trust fund that was set to mature on my thirty-fifth birthday.
And at the very bottom of the folder lay a single, recently printed sheet of paper dated just three days ago.
It was a notification of an active, automated wire transfer.
Every month, ten thousand dollars was still being transferred from an unknown Swiss bank account into a trust fund under my birth name.
Attached to the paper was a short, typed note from an anonymous sender:
May you like
“Your mother didn't die of natural causes, Monica. And the people who stole you thirty-one years ago are still watching you.”
I stared at the paper in the dim light of the basement, the cold key to a secret bank account resting heavy in my hand, realizing that my family's darkest truth had only just begun to unspool.
