Chapter 7 - The Evidence
From the worn canvas bag, Amelia pulled out a thick, yellowed manila envelope. The string closure was frayed, indicating it had been opened and closed many times.
"Thomas kept everything," Amelia said, her gaze fixed on Evelyn. "He couldn't live with the guilt at the end of his life. He wanted me to know why I grew up in a one-bedroom apartment wearing second-hand clothes while my face was on the cover of Forbes magazine."
Amelia opened the envelope and pulled out a stack of papers. She didn't hand them to Evelyn. She handed them directly to Isabella.
Isabella’s hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold the documents. She looked down.
The first page was a copy of a birth certificate. It bore the seal of the city's highest-tier private hospital. Name: Amelia Grace Hartley. Mother: Victoria Hartley. Father: Jonathan Hartley.
The second document was a transfer of custody form, heavily redacted but bearing a signature Isabella had seen on thousands of corporate contracts. Evelyn Hartley.
The third was a recent, certified document. "I took a DNA test a week ago," Amelia explained to the silent room. "I cross-referenced it with the public medical data your company released during the genetic charity drive last year. We are a 99.9% match, Isabella. We are identical twins."
Gasps erupted from the crowd. Whispers broke out like wildfire. The security guards looked at Evelyn, unsure of what to do. You couldn't just drag the physical duplicate of the family heiress out the back door.
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Isabella stared at the DNA results. The numbers blurred together as tears finally spilled over her eyelashes. She looked up at her grandmother.
"Grandmother... is this true?" Isabella’s voice cracked. "Did you know?"
