Chapter 3 - The Name Her Mother Buried
Pastor Elias Burkhart was found 3 hours later.
Alive.
Barely.
Someone had struck him behind the ear and locked him inside the church storage room.
Bella rode with him to Northwestern Memorial while Lucas's men occupied nearly every corridor outside the emergency department.
At 2:13 a.m., Elias opened his eyes.
"Bella."
She leaned closer.
"Who took the envelope?"
His gaze shifted toward Lucas.
"Helena was afraid this would happen."
"What was inside?"
"A birth certificate. A photograph. A letter."
Bella swallowed.
"Whose birth certificate?"
"Yours."
The room seemed to tilt.
"My birth certificate is at home."
"No. Your amended certificate is."
Bella stared at him.
Elias reached weakly for her hand.
"Helena wasn't your biological mother."
Bella pulled away.
Lucas remained absolutely still.
"That's impossible."
"She loved you more than most biological mothers ever love their children."
"That's not what I said."
Elias closed his eyes briefly.
"Helena worked nights at St. Catherine's Hospital. Twenty-seven years ago, a frightened woman arrived carrying a newborn girl. She had been injured. She believed men were following her."
"Who?"
"Her name was Evelyn Dracott."
Lucas's chair scraped backward.
"My aunt."
Elias nodded.
Lucas's father had a younger sister.
Officially, Evelyn Dracott had died overseas before the fire.
Apparently, she had not.
"What happened to her?" Bella asked.
"She disappeared the following night. Helena was told to protect the baby."
Bella's throat closed.
"The baby was me."
"Yes."
The word split her life cleanly in two.
Bella stood and walked toward the window.
Helena had taught her to read.
Helena had packed sandwiches into brown paper bags.
Helena had worked double shifts so Bella could attend college.
Blood did not erase any of that.
But suddenly every childhood question had a different answer.
Lucas spoke behind her.
"If Evelyn was her mother, Bella and I are cousins."
Elias shook his head.
"No."
Both turned.
"Evelyn wasn't Bella's mother."
"But you just—"
"She was carrying the child for someone else."
Bella's patience snapped.
"Then tell me everything."
Elias looked frightened.
"I don't know everything."
"Tell me what you know."
The baby had arrived without hospital paperwork.
Evelyn carried documents proving a financial network had been stealing from Dracott businesses.
Helena hid the documents.
Days later, Evelyn vanished.
Then came the fire.
Helena realized whoever had killed the Dracotts might eventually search for the infant, so she created a new identity.
Oxana became Bella.
Kavalchuk became her shield.
"Who were my parents?"
Elias hesitated.
"Helena never told me."
Bella laughed bitterly.
"So I've inherited a mystery."
"And danger."
Lucas's phone rang.
He listened for less than 10 seconds.
Then he stood.
"We have to leave."
"What happened?"
"Someone broke into your apartment."
Bella arrived to find the door hanging crookedly.
Nothing valuable had been stolen.
The television remained.
Her laptop remained.
The small envelope of emergency cash remained beneath the sink.
Only Helena's possessions were gone.
Photographs.
Letters.
Old nursing uniforms.
A wooden jewelry box worth perhaps $20.
Whoever entered had not been looking for money.
They were erasing a dead woman.
Bella stood among the wreckage.
Lucas watched her.
"I can put you somewhere secure."
"I don't want your penthouse."
"I wasn't offering it."
"Good."
"I own another property."
"Of course you do."
Something almost like amusement moved across his face.
It disappeared immediately.
Bella noticed.
And hated that she noticed.
Lucas's security chief, Marcus Dane, arrived.
"There's something else."
He handed Lucas a plastic evidence sleeve.
Inside was a blister pack.
Small white pills.
Bella's stomach tightened.
"Where did you get that?"
"Under your dresser."
Lucas stared at it.
Then at Bella.
"The pill I gave you."
"You remember?"
"I remember everything about that morning."
The words hung between them.
Marcus cleared his throat.
"Boss, you need to see the label."
Lucas read it.
His expression hardened.
Bella took the sleeve.
The medication was not what Lucas had apparently believed.
The pharmacy label belonged to Rianna Vaspuchcci.
"Why was her medication in your penthouse?"
Lucas said nothing.
"Lucas."
"Rianna sometimes arranged my prescriptions."
"That doesn't answer me."
He finally looked at her.
"The pills in that drawer were supposed to be ordinary pain medication."
Bella stared at the label.
"And this wasn't?"
"No."
"What was it?"
Marcus answered carefully.
"A fertility medication."
Silence.
Bella nearly laughed from disbelief.
"That's absurd."
But another memory surfaced.
She had been nauseated twice that week.
She had blamed grief.
Her period was late.
She had blamed stress.
She stopped breathing.
Lucas understood at the same moment.
"No."
Bella grabbed her coat.
"Where are you going?"
"Pharmacy."
"Bella—"
"Do not follow me."
He followed her.
Twenty minutes later, Bella stood in the fluorescent aisle of an all-night drugstore holding 3 pregnancy tests.
Lucas waited outside the restroom.
The first showed 2 lines.
Bella stared.
The second showed the same.
Then the third.
She sat on the closed toilet lid.
Her hands began shaking.
When she finally opened the door, Lucas saw her face.
He did not ask.
He leaned against the wall as though something had struck him.
Bella handed him the tests.
"You gave me the wrong pill."
Lucas looked sick.
"I know."
"You told me not to trust you."
"I know."
"You were right."
He closed his eyes.
Bella had expected excuses.
Instead he said, "Whatever you choose, I will not interfere."
She looked at him sharply.
"This isn't about what I choose tonight."
"No."
"It's about someone putting that medication in your drawer."
Lucas's eyes opened.
They were cold again.
"Yes."
Rianna.
The mysterious hiring.
North Meridian.
The stolen envelope.
The photograph.
Pieces that should not have touched were beginning to form a pattern.
Then Bella's phone rang.
Mrs. Freda Melnik.
Bella answered.
The old woman's voice was shaking.
"Bella, sweetheart, someone came to my house."
"Who?"
"He asked about Helena."
Bella straightened.
"Lock your door. We're coming."
"No. Listen to me first."
Freda began crying.
"Your mother made me promise never to tell you unless something happened."
"Tell me what?"
"The night Helena brought you home, she wasn't alone."
Bella's grip tightened around the phone.
"Who was with her?"
Freda whispered a name.
Bella slowly turned toward Lucas.
Because the man Freda named was not dead.
He was not missing.
He was not a stranger.
He was the person who had signed Bella's employment authorization 8 weeks earlier.
Victor Dracott.
May you like
Lucas's uncle.
And chairman of Dracott Holdings.
