Chapter 2 - What the Camera Saw
Ethan watched the security footage in a consultation room at 1:17 in the morning.
I wasn't allowed to leave my hospital bed, so Detective Rosa Martinez sat beside me with a tablet while Ethan stood near the window.
The recording began at 4:06 p.m.
Three hours before my announcement.
Linda entered the dining room alone.
She checked the hallway.
Then she removed something from her purse.
A folded document.
She placed it inside the drawer of a sideboard.
Ethan frowned.
“What is that?”
Detective Martinez paused the video.
“We don't know yet.”
She resumed it.
At 4:11, Linda made a phone call.
The security camera didn't capture perfect audio, but enough words were clear.
“…tonight.”
Pause.
“…she thinks she’s pregnant.”
My skin went cold.
Ethan stepped closer.
“How did she know?”
I hadn't told Linda.
I hadn't told anyone except my doctor.
Not even Ethan.
The video continued.
Linda said something else.
“…need proof before he finds out.”
Ethan turned toward me.
“Claire?”
“I never told her.”
Detective Martinez wrote something down.
The footage skipped forward.
At 5:03, Linda entered the dining room again.
This time she was holding an envelope.
She opened it.
Inside were photographs.
The camera angle revealed only pieces of them.
A parking lot.
A medical building.
Me.
Ethan whispered, “What the hell?”
I recognized the building instantly.
“My OB's office.”
Someone had photographed me entering my doctor's office.
Detective Martinez paused the video again.
“Did you know anyone was following you?”
“No.”
Ethan's face had gone pale.
The next clip was worse.
Linda took out her phone and photographed something inside the envelope.
Then she said aloud, apparently rehearsing what she intended to say.
“She lies. She manipulates him. She isn't pregnant.”
She repeated it twice.
Like she was preparing a performance.
The room felt colder.
This hadn't been a spontaneous argument.
Linda had arrived at her son's birthday already convinced she needed to expose me.
But expose me for what?
I was pregnant.
The video jumped to 6:38.
Guests were arriving.
Linda opened the sideboard drawer.
The folded document was still there.
She looked at it.
Then closed the drawer.
Detective Martinez stopped the recording.
“We need that document.”
Ethan immediately reached for his phone.
“My mother's house is being processed. I'll tell the officers.”
Martinez shook her head.
“They already found it.”
She opened a folder.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A laboratory report.”
Ethan stared at her.
“For what?”
“Pregnancy hormone testing.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“The patient's name is Claire Whitmore.”
My stomach tightened.
“I never had a test at that lab.”
Martinez nodded.
“We're verifying that.”
She placed a photocopy on the table.
My name.
My date of birth.
My address.
And a result.
NEGATIVE.
Ethan stared at it.
“That’s why she called Claire a liar.”
“But I never took this test.”
Dr. Patel, who had returned to check on me, examined the document.
“This isn't from our hospital system.”
“Could somebody fake it?” Ethan asked.
“Absolutely.”
Detective Martinez leaned back.
“There's another possibility.”
We looked at her.
“Someone submitted a sample under Claire's name.”
The room became silent.
I remembered something.
Three weeks earlier, Linda had visited our house.
She had complained about a headache and asked to use our bathroom.
Later, I found my bathroom trash disturbed.
At the time I thought nothing of it.
Now I felt sick.
“She took something.”
Ethan looked at me.
“What?”
“I don't know. Maybe a tissue. Something from the bathroom.”
Dr. Patel shook her head.
“That wouldn't ordinarily be sufficient for a standard pregnancy blood test.”
Martinez said, “Which means we need to determine what was actually tested.”
Ethan paced toward the wall.
“This is insane.”
But the night wasn't finished with us.
At 2:04 a.m., Dr. Patel returned with another specialist.
They had reviewed the ultrasound.
Both embryos had cardiac activity.
The trauma had caused bleeding, but at that moment both remained viable.
I cried when she told me.
Ethan cried too.
Then she explained the developmental discrepancy.
One embryo measured approximately ten days behind the other.
There were benign explanations.
Measurement error.
Delayed implantation.
Placental factors.
But the difference was unusual enough that they wanted close monitoring.
“No conclusions tonight,” she emphasized.
I nodded.
For the first time since the party, I allowed myself to breathe.
Then Detective Martinez's phone rang.
She stepped into the hallway.
When she returned, her expression had hardened.
“They found another envelope at Linda's house.”
Ethan looked exhausted.
“What now?”
“It contained photographs of Claire going to appointments over the last two months.”
My heart dropped.
“Two months?”
The detective nodded.
“Some were taken before you knew you were pregnant.”
That made no sense.
“Why would Linda have someone following me before I was pregnant?”
Martinez slid several photographs across the bedside table.
One showed me leaving a pharmacy.
Another showed me meeting my sister.
Another showed me outside a coffee shop.
Then I saw the final photograph.
My breath stopped.
It showed me walking into a fertility clinic.
Ethan looked at me.
“Claire?”
I stared at the photograph.
“I've never been there.”
He looked again.
The woman had my coat.
My hair.
My height.
But when Detective Martinez enlarged the image, the face became clearer.
It wasn't me.
It was someone who looked remarkably like me.
And Ethan knew her.
His hand dropped from mine.
“No.”
I looked at him.
“Who is she?”
Ethan didn't answer.
“Ethan.”
His face had turned white.
Finally he whispered a name I had never heard before.
“Rebecca.”
“Who's Rebecca?”
He closed his eyes.
“My mother's other daughter.”
I stared at him.
“You don't have a sister.”
May you like
Ethan opened his eyes.
“That’s what I thought.”
