Chapter 6 - The Girl in the Red Coat
Rachel felt as though someone had pushed her beneath freezing water.
"Me?"
Thomas Lancaster struggled to lift his hand.
His finger still pointed toward the little girl in the photograph.
Rachel looked at Nathaniel.
"He's confused."
Nathaniel wanted to agree.
But Thomas's expression was painfully clear.
Mason approached the bed.
"Father, are you saying Rachel was part of the medical program?"
Thomas blinked once.
Yes.
Rachel shook her head.
"I was healthy. I never had Daniel's problems."
Thomas reached for the pencil again.
His hand trembled.
Rachel instinctively moved to help him.
Then she stopped.
For the first time since becoming his caregiver, she didn't know whether she could bear to touch him.
Nathaniel gently took the pencil and positioned it between his father's fingers.
Thomas wrote one word.
BLOOD.
Rachel frowned.
Mason whispered, "The blood trials."
Nathaniel turned.
"What blood trials?"
Mason rubbed his forehead.
"Early in the foundation's history, the clinic ran a program for children with complicated immune conditions. The records were incomplete. That's what first made me suspicious."
Rachel remembered something.
She had been eight when her mother took her to a hospital in Denver.
She remembered white hallways.
A stuffed rabbit.
A nurse who promised she wouldn't feel anything.
And her mother crying in the parking lot afterward.
She had always thought it was a routine examination.
"Did they do something to me?" she asked.
Thomas closed his eyes.
Nathaniel leaned over him.
"Father, answer her."
Thomas opened his eyes again.
With enormous effort, he wrote two more words.
I STOPPED.
Rachel stepped away.
"Stopped what?"
Thomas began to cough.
His breathing became uneven.
Nathaniel called the private medical team stationed downstairs.
Within minutes, a nurse arrived and checked his vital signs.
Thomas was exhausted.
The nurse advised that he shouldn't be questioned further.
Rachel wanted to protest.
But she saw the distress in the old man's face.
Whatever he had done, he was still her patient.
She helped adjust his pillows.
Then she left the room without speaking.
Nathaniel followed her into the hallway.
"Rachel."
She kept walking.
"Rachel, please."
She stopped near a window overlooking the snowy grounds.
"All my life, I thought my mother worked herself to death because she was trying to take care of us."
Nathaniel stood beside her.
"She was."
"But she was also trying to protect us from your family."
He had no answer.
Rachel pressed her hands against the windowsill.
"Your father paid for Daniel's care. Your mother knew my mother. Your brother knew about the clinic. And the man you trusted most may have helped cover it up."
"I know."
"Every person in your family knew something."
Nathaniel looked at her.
"Except me."
Rachel turned.
"That's what everyone keeps saying. That they didn't know enough."
He accepted the criticism.
Then he said, "You're right to be angry."
Rachel looked away.
"I don't want you to tell me what I'm right to feel."
Nathaniel fell silent.
After a moment, she spoke more quietly.
"I want somebody to tell me the truth."
He nodded.
"So do I."
Downstairs, Grace Bennett arrived carrying a laptop and an old foundation directory.
Nathaniel brought her into the study.
Mason joined them.
Grace had spent years investigating financial misconduct before working for Nathaniel.
She knew how to follow records without trusting the people who controlled them.
"I found the archive inventory," she said.
Nathaniel leaned forward.
"Account 2417?"
Grace nodded.
"Originally opened under the name Vivian Mercer."
Eleanor's maiden name.
"The account wasn't destroyed," Grace continued. "It was transferred into a private medical trust."
"Who controls it?"
Grace hesitated.
"That's the interesting part."
She turned the laptop toward them.
The trust listed two authorized custodians.
Thomas Lancaster.
And Margaret Collins.
Rachel stared.
"My mother?"
Grace nodded.
"The trust remained active after her death."
Mason frowned.
"How?"
"Someone continued signing renewal paperwork under her name."
Nathaniel looked at the dates.
The signatures appeared every year.
Including the previous month.
"Forgery," he said.
"Possibly," Grace replied. "But I can't determine that from scans."
Rachel leaned toward the screen.
One signature looked familiar.
She had seen it on birthday cards, school permission slips, and letters her mother wrote before she died.
The others looked slightly different.
"The last one isn't hers," Rachel said.
Grace enlarged the image.
"Why?"
"My mother never crossed her sevens like that."
Nathaniel studied the signature.
Then he noticed the same unusual handwriting on an old family document Mason had brought from the blue room.
The lettering was almost identical.
"Caleb," he said.
Grace didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she opened another file.
"I found something more important."
It was an invoice from the foundation's former medical center.
Dated fifteen years earlier.
The description read:
Pediatric emergency transfer. Patient E.L.
Rachel felt sick.
"Elizabeth Lancaster."
Grace nodded.
"That's what the initials suggest."
The transfer destination had been redacted.
But the transportation company was still listed.
Shaw Medical Transport.
Nathaniel stood.
"Caleb's family business."
Mason looked at him.
"I told you."
Nathaniel called the guards.
Caleb was still being held in the guest office.
His personal phone had been secured, but he was insisting on speaking to an attorney.
Nathaniel instructed the guards to preserve everything and contact law enforcement.
He wasn't going to let this become another family secret settled behind locked doors.
Before leaving the study, Rachel asked Grace one question.
"Can you find out where that ambulance took me?"
Grace nodded.
"I can try."
Mason moved toward the window.
Nathaniel noticed the tension in his shoulders.
"What's wrong?"
Mason looked at Rachel.
"When I found the original records, there was another child."
Rachel went still.
"What child?"
"A little girl listed as your sister."
Rachel stared at him.
"I don't have a sister."
"I know."
Mason swallowed.
"That's what made me think the records were false."
Grace examined the document again.
Then her expression changed.
"Wait."
She enlarged the transfer form.
Beneath the patient's initials was another field.
Accompanying minor: D.C.
Daniel Collins.
But beneath that was a handwritten note.
Both children returned to mother.
Rachel gripped the edge of the desk.
"Both?"
Grace looked up.
"There were two patient records under the same identity."
Nathaniel stared at the screen.
Then Grace opened the second file.
It contained a photograph of an eight-year-old girl lying in a hospital bed.
She had Rachel's face.
May you like
But she was wearing a small hospital bracelet with a different name.
EMILY SHAW.
