Chapter 2 - The DNA Result That Shouldn’t Exist
The first envelope arrived on Monday morning.
No return address.
No note.
Just five hundred dollars in cash.
I stared at it on the kitchen table.
Eleanor stared too.
“Where did that come from?”
“I have no idea.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“I know what five hundred dollars looks like.”
She ignored the sarcasm.
“Did you tell anyone about the heating bill?”
“No.”
“Mr. Harris?”
“He knows we’re broke. Everybody knows we’re broke.”
I picked up the envelope.
My first thought was Dominic.
That annoyed me more than it should have.
I didn’t want Moretti money.
I didn’t want charity from a stranger because I had cut him out of a chair.
And I definitely didn’t want to owe a man whose name made grown men whisper.
I went straight to Harris Metal and Salvage.
Mr. Harris was sixty-three, permanently smelled like machine oil, and could identify the value of copper from twenty feet away.
He looked at the cash.
“Not me.”
“You sure?”
“I like you, kid. Not five-hundred-dollars-for-no-reason much.”
“Thanks.”
“Welcome.”
I folded the envelope into my coat.
“Has anyone been asking about me?”
Harris stopped sorting brass fixtures.
“Why?”
“Just answer.”
He wiped his hands on a rag.
“Man came by Friday.”
“What man?”
“Nice coat. Expensive watch. Looked like he’d never lifted anything heavier than a lawyer.”
“What did he want?”
“Asked how long you worked here. If you were dependable. Whether you had family.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did you tell him?”
“That I mind my own business.”
I looked at him.
He sighed.
“And that you’re dependable.”
“Did he give a name?”
“No.”
I knew anyway.
By noon, I was standing in the lobby of Moretti Holdings in Lower Manhattan.
Marble floors.
Brass elevators.
People wearing clothes that probably cost more than my annual income.
The receptionist looked at my wet boots.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
“Mr. Moretti doesn’t take walk-ins.”
“Tell him Lily Hayes has his money.”
Her expression changed.
Five minutes later, I was in a private elevator.
Dominic’s office was on the thirty-fourth floor.
He was behind his desk when I walked in.
No tie.
Dark shirt.
Fresh bandage near his hairline.
He looked healthier than he had in the warehouse.
Unfortunately, he also looked more intimidating.
I dropped the envelope on his desk.
“No.”
He glanced down.
“What’s that?”
“You know.”
“I don’t.”
“Five hundred dollars appeared at my apartment.”
He leaned back.
“And you came here?”
“You asked about my heating bill.”
That got his attention.
“Who told you that?”
“Mr. Harris told me someone asked questions. You told me to run from Warehouse 19 and three days later strangers know my bank balance.”
“I didn’t send you money.”
I studied him.
He seemed sincere.
Which made it worse.
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know.”
“Great.”
I grabbed the envelope.
Dominic stood.
“Lily.”
I turned.
For a moment, he seemed uncertain.
That surprised me.
Men like him were not supposed to be uncertain.
“Sit down.”
“No.”
“Please.”
That surprised me more.
I stayed standing.
He walked to a side table and picked up Anna’s photograph.
“You asked about my daughter.”
“Yes.”
“Her name was Anna.”
“Was?”
“She disappeared three years ago.”
“What happened?”
“Her car went through a bridge railing during a storm.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
His face barely changed, but grief had weight.
You could feel it in the room.
“They never found her body,” he said.
I looked at the picture.
“You think she’s alive?”
“I don’t know what I think anymore.”
He set the photo down.
“You and Anna share certain physical similarities.”
“The scar.”
“Not just the scar.”
I stiffened.
“What exactly have you been investigating?”
“Your public records.”
“You had no right.”
“I know.”
That stopped me.
“You know?”
“Yes.”
“No excuses?”
“No.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“Because three days ago I was beaten, tied to a chair and expecting to die. Then a twenty-two-year-old stranger walked into that warehouse with the same scar as my missing daughter and told me her name was Lily Hayes.”
My anger faltered.
He continued.
“Your birth certificate was filed when you were six.”
I felt the floor shift.
“What?”
“Your parents listed on it cannot be verified.”
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
“My parents died when I was a baby.”
“That’s what Eleanor told you.”
I stepped closer.
“Don’t bring my grandmother into this.”
“I’m telling you what the records say.”
“And I’m telling you she raised me.”
“I’m not questioning that.”
“You’re questioning everything.”
“Yes.”
The word hit harder than shouting.
I grabbed the envelope.
“I’m done.”
At the elevator, Dominic said, “Someone else is watching you.”
I turned.
“What?”
“The money wasn’t from me.”
“So?”
“So somebody knows enough about your finances to know exactly what would matter.”
My hand tightened around the envelope.
“Are you trying to scare me?”
“No. I’m trying to keep you alive.”
The elevator doors opened.
I left anyway.
That night, Eleanor made chicken soup.
Cheap chicken.
Too many potatoes.
Not enough meat.
The kind of dinner you made when the electricity bill was on the counter.
I watched her from across the table.
“Grandma?”
“Yes?”
“Who were my parents?”
Her spoon stopped.
“Rebecca and Daniel.”
“What did they look like?”
“You know.”
“No. I know what you told me.”
Her face tightened.
“Where is this coming from?”
“Someone checked.”
“Someone?”
“A man.”
“Which man?”
I hesitated.
“Dominic Moretti.”
The bowl slipped from Eleanor’s hand.
It struck the table.
Soup spread across the wood.
For several seconds she didn’t move.
Then she whispered, “You stay away from him.”
“Why?”
“He’s dangerous.”
“He’s also the reason I know my birth certificate was filed when I was six.”
All color left her face.
“Who told you that?”
“Is it true?”
“Lily—”
“Is it true?”
“Yes.”
The answer was barely audible.
My chest tightened.
“Why?”
She stood too quickly.
“I need to clean this.”
I grabbed her wrist.
“Grandma.”
She looked at my hand.
Then at me.
Her eyes filled.
“I did what I had to do.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you were a child.”
“And?”
“And there are things children shouldn’t have to carry.”
“I’m not a child anymore.”
She pulled away.
“Some truths don’t get safer because you get older.”
Then she walked into her bedroom and locked the door.
At Moretti Holdings, Gabriel entered Dominic’s office at 11:42 p.m.
He carried a sealed laboratory report.
Dominic looked at it.
“You’re sure?”
“They ran it twice.”
“Say it.”
Gabriel didn’t sit.
“The mitochondrial markers are a match.”
Dominic stared at him.
“To Anna?”
“Yes.”
“That means?”
“It means Lily and Anna share the same maternal line.”
Dominic stood slowly.
“Sisters?”
“Possibly.”
“Mother and daughter?”
“The age makes that unlikely, but not technically impossible depending on records.”
“Cousins?”
“Yes.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“What about my sample?”
Gabriel placed another page down.
“I had the lab compare yours after the first result.”
Dominic looked at him.
Gabriel swallowed.
“You’re related to Lily.”
“How closely?”
“That’s the problem.”
Dominic picked up the paper.
The words blurred for a second.
Paternity probability: 99.98%.
He read it twice.
Then a third time.
“No.”
Gabriel said nothing.
Dominic’s fingers tightened on the report.
“No. I would know.”
“DNA says otherwise.”
“I have one daughter.”
“You had Anna.”
“I have one daughter.”
Gabriel’s voice softened.
“Dominic…”
Dominic turned away.
Twenty-two years.
He thought of Lily standing in the warehouse.
Her sarcasm.
Her stubbornness.
The way she refused to leave him tied to a chair.
He thought of a woman from twenty-three years earlier.
Claire Bennett.
Dark hair.
Sharp laugh.
The only woman he had ever loved before Anna’s mother.
A woman who disappeared from his life without explanation after telling him she had miscarried.
Dominic turned back.
“Find Claire Bennett.”
Gabriel didn’t move.
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“The lab found something unusual in Anna’s archived sample.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
Gabriel placed two reports side by side.
“Anna wasn’t only related to Lily through you.”
Dominic stared.
“She also shared Lily’s maternal DNA.”
Silence filled the office.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“I know.”
“How could they share both paternal and maternal lines?”
Gabriel took a breath.
“Unless they had the same parents.”
Dominic’s face went still.
“Anna was nineteen when Lily was born.”
“No,” Gabriel said. “Anna was not.”
Dominic looked up sharply.
Gabriel slid a third document across the desk.
It was Anna’s original hospital birth file.
The date had been altered.
Not once.
Twice.
And beneath the correction fluid was another year.
A year Dominic had never seen.
Gabriel said quietly,
“Someone changed your daughter’s age.”
Across Brooklyn, I stood in Eleanor’s bedroom while she slept.
I hated myself for searching.
But fear is a strange thing.
Sometimes it makes betrayal feel necessary.
I opened the closet.
Moved blankets.
Found the wooden box.
Inside was a silver crescent necklace.
I turned it over.
A.M.
My breath stopped.
Beneath it was an old photograph.
Eleanor, younger.
A dark-haired woman I had never seen.
And beside her—
Dominic Moretti.
On the back, someone had written:
Claire, Dominic, and the girls.
I turned the photo over again.
May you like
The girls.
Plural.
