Chapter 7 - THE WRONG SON
For the first time since Maeve had known him, Adrian Vale sat down because his legs would not hold him.
Julian remained standing.
The tiny photograph lay between them.
Two newborn boys.
Two names.
One impossible sentence.
HE TOOK THE WRONG SON HOME.
Maeve looked from one brother to the other.
“No.”
Julian’s voice was barely audible.
Adrian lifted his eyes.
“You know something.”
Julian shook his head.
“I know what I was told.”
“What?”
“That I was born two years before you.”
Walter Sloane had returned to the sitting room.
He stared at the photograph.
“That isn’t what the note means.”
Everyone turned.
Adrian stood.
“You have ten seconds to stop knowing things after we discover them.”
Walter rubbed his face.
“Julian was born first. That part is true.”
“Then explain it.”
Walter picked up the locket carefully.
“Lydia wasn’t saying Malcolm took the wrong baby from a hospital.”
Maeve frowned.
“She meant something else.”
“Yes.”
Walter looked at Marcus.
Marcus understood first.
His face went gray.
“She meant inheritance.”
Walter nodded.
“Malcolm believed blood determined loyalty.”
Adrian laughed bitterly.
“Rich coming from him.”
“He believed Julian, as Evelyn’s biological son, would protect the Vale legacy.”
Julian’s eyes narrowed.
“And Adrian?”
“Lydia’s son.”
Walter looked at Adrian.
“Malcolm always feared you would eventually discover what he had done to Lydia.”
Adrian went very still.
“What did he do?”
Marcus stepped forward.
“You told us she died from complications.”
Walter closed his eyes.
“She did.”
“That is not the whole answer.”
“No.”
Marcus grabbed Walter’s jacket.
“What happened to my sister?”
Adrian pulled him back.
“Let him speak.”
Walter looked at the floor.
“Lydia suffered severe bleeding after delivery. The doctor wanted to transfer her to Massachusetts General.”
Marcus stopped breathing.
“Malcolm refused.”
“Why?”
“Too many records. Too many questions about the baby.”
Maeve covered her mouth.
Walter continued.
“He brought a private physician instead.”
Marcus looked shattered.
“She could have lived?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could she have?”
Walter forced himself to meet Marcus’s eyes.
“Yes.”
Marcus turned away.
Adrian looked at the tiny photograph again.
“He let my mother die to protect his reputation.”
“Yes.”
“And then gave me to Evelyn.”
“Yes.”
Adrian’s eyes were dry.
That seemed worse than tears.
Julian stood beside him.
“I’m sorry.”
Adrian looked at his brother.
“For what?”
“For spending half my life believing Father protected you because he loved you more.”
Adrian’s mouth tightened.
“He didn’t love either of us correctly.”
Julian nodded.
“No.”
Maeve looked at Kathleen’s note again.
“Then what does ‘Malcolm doesn’t know which boy survived’ mean?”
Walter hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
Celeste suddenly stood.
“I do.”
Everyone turned.
She had been quiet for nearly twenty minutes.
Too quiet.
“The road.”
Julian frowned.
“What about it?”
“The night Malcolm ordered the attack, he kept saying, ‘One son is enough.’”
Adrian stared.
Celeste continued.
“I thought he meant he would keep Adrian and eliminate Julian.”
“So did I,” Julian said.
“What if he didn’t care which one?”
Silence.
Maeve felt cold.
Walter shook his head.
“No.”
Celeste looked at him.
“Think about it.”
She pointed toward the photograph.
“Malcolm knew Adrian was Lydia’s son. He knew Julian was Evelyn’s. Julian had turned against him.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“And I was becoming harder to control.”
“Yes.”
Julian slowly understood.
“He planned to keep whichever son obeyed.”
Walter sank into a chair.
“My God.”
Adrian looked toward Marcus.
“What happened at 2:14?”
Marcus rubbed both hands over his face.
“Malcolm called me.”
“From the road?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Marcus hesitated.
“Exact words.”
Adrian’s voice sharpened.
“Give me the exact words.”
Marcus finally looked at him.
“He said, ‘If the older boy won’t listen, prepare the younger one.’”
Adrian’s face emptied.
Julian whispered, “He was going to come after you.”
Marcus nodded.
“That’s why the watch has Adrian’s initials.”
Maeve looked at Julian’s pocket watch.
Julian explained.
“Father gave it to me that night.”
“Why?”
“He said if I refused his offer, the watch would belong to Adrian by morning.”
Maeve felt sick.
A threat disguised as an heirloom.
Julian closed the watch.
“I refused.”
Adrian looked at him.
“You knew that might put me in danger.”
“Yes.”
“And you refused anyway.”
Julian flinched.
“I believed exposing him was the only way either of us would ever be free.”
Adrian looked away.
Not forgiveness.
Not yet.
But understanding had entered the room.
Maeve suddenly remembered something.
“The child’s drawing.”
Everyone looked at her.
“My mother wrote her warning behind something I made when I was seven.”
She picked it up.
“Why keep that specific drawing?”
Julian frowned.
Maeve held it toward the lamp.
Crayon covered most of the page.
But one corner felt thicker.
She carefully separated two sheets that had been glued together.
A photograph slipped out.
Kathleen Bennett.
Much younger.
Standing beside Lydia Hale.
Marcus gasped.
“My sister.”
They stood outside a hospital.
Kathleen wore nursing scrubs.
Lydia looked heavily pregnant.
On the back:
KATHLEEN—IF HE TAKES MY BABY, TELL EVELYN THE TRUTH.
Marcus sat down.
Maeve stared at her mother’s face.
“She knew Lydia.”
Walter whispered, “That’s why Malcolm kept watching your family.”
Everything clicked.
Kathleen had not entered the Vale story after Julian’s attack.
She had been there before Adrian was born.
She knew what Malcolm had done.
Maeve looked at Julian.
“You didn’t approach me because someone randomly accessed my mother’s records.”
Julian’s expression tightened.
“No.”
“You knew she had been connected to Adrian’s birth.”
“I suspected.”
“You still used me to find the truth.”
“At first.”
Maeve laughed bitterly.
“Always ‘at first.’”
Julian stepped closer.
“Maeve.”
She moved away.
“No.”
Eli began crying upstairs through the monitor.
Maeve immediately turned.
“I’m done for tonight.”
Nobody stopped her.
She went upstairs.
Eli was awake in his crib.
She lifted him and pressed her face into his warm hair.
“You don’t owe these people anything,” she whispered.
His small hand touched her chin.
Maeve cried then.
Quietly.
Not because she was weak.
Because for months she had believed she had failed to build Eli a family.
Now an enormous family had appeared around him.
And every adult in it seemed to carry a secret sharp enough to cut.
A few minutes later, Hannah entered carrying Eli’s stuffed rabbit.
“I found this downstairs.”
Maeve took it.
“Thanks.”
Hannah hesitated.
“There’s something inside.”
Maeve frowned.
“What?”
“The seam was open.”
She squeezed the rabbit.
Something crackled.
Maeve opened the fabric.
A folded piece of paper fell out.
Not old.
New.
Printed that day.
Maeve unfolded it.
A photograph filled the page.
Adrian entering South Station.
Julian beside him.
Maeve between them.
Someone had photographed all three less than twelve hours earlier.
Below it were five words.
THE WRONG SON IS STILL ALIVE.
Maeve’s blood went cold.
May you like
On the back was another sentence.
THIS ENDS WHERE LYDIA DIED.
