Chapter 5 - THE GIRL IN THE RED COAT
Nate reached for the photograph, but Hannah placed her hand over it first.
“Who is she?”
He stared at the little girl.
“I don't know.”
Walter's silence was more disturbing than any accusation.
Hannah looked from the photograph to her husband. “You expect me to believe you have never seen this child?”
“I swear I haven't.”
“That's not the same as telling me the truth.”
Nate swallowed. “I never had another child.”
Walter leaned back, studying his son.
“Then someone wants us to believe you did.”
The photograph showed Celeste entering the Blackwood estate through the side gate. She wore a dark coat and carried a handbag. The child beside her looked about four years old, with dark hair and a small birthmark beneath her left ear.
On the back, someone had written three words.
THE FIRST HEIR.
Hannah felt the room closing around her.
“Could she be Julian's daughter?”
“Possibly,” Walter said. “Or a child someone has been hiding for a reason.”
Nate took a step away from the table.
“Celeste told me she had no children.”
“Did you ask?” Hannah said.
He looked at her.
“No.”
“Of course you didn't.”
Nate's face tightened, but he said nothing.
Ethan checked Hannah's blood pressure and insisted that she rest. She refused to leave until Walter explained the trust.
The documents showed that the Blackwood family fortune had been divided into several holdings. One remained under the control of an independent trustee, protected by conditions written by Nate's grandmother. If the first legitimate heir's birth was registered and the mother confirmed the child's identity, the trustee would release records connected to the family's original fortune.
The records were not simply financial.
They included evidence of bribery, intimidation, and the disappearance of several people who had challenged Walter's father.
“If those files become public, the entire organization collapses,” Nate said.
“Then let it collapse,” Hannah replied.
His eyes snapped toward her.
“You don't understand what that means. People who depend on us will turn against us. There are men who will kill to protect what's in those files.”
“And there are people who have already tried to kill our son to keep them hidden.”
Nate looked away.
Walter admitted that he had spent years trying to locate the trust's original records. He had believed they were destroyed after his mother's death. The birth of Hannah's son had triggered an alert, and within hours, someone had begun moving against them.
“Who knew the baby was born?” Hannah asked.
“Everyone who had access to the hospital system,” Walter replied. “And anyone who knew the trust's conditions.”
“Margaret. Julian. Celeste.”
“And me,” Walter said. “I knew the conditions, but I didn't know the full contents.”
Hannah looked at the photograph again.
“Then we find the girl.”
Nate shook his head. “It's too dangerous.”
“Stop telling me what's too dangerous.”
“I'm trying to protect you.”
“You keep using that word as though it excuses everything you've done.”
His expression crumpled for a second.
“I know I failed you.”
“You failed us before our son was born. Now you have a chance to stop failing him.”
The words settled heavily between them.
Walter arranged for Rosa to take Hannah and the baby to a discreet apartment owned by an old family acquaintance. Ethan accompanied them, while Nate and Walter followed a lead on Celeste.
The apartment was small, clean, and far removed from the luxury Hannah had grown accustomed to. She welcomed the anonymity.
For several hours, she slept in short stretches while Ethan monitored the baby.
When she awoke, Rosa was sitting beside the window with a laptop.
“I found something,” she said.
A charity had published a photograph from a fundraising gala two years earlier. Celeste stood beside Margaret Blackwood, smiling for the cameras. The same little girl in the red coat was seated on Margaret's lap.
The caption identified her as Lily Monroe, Celeste's niece.
But a public birth announcement listed Lily's mother as deceased and her father as unknown.
Hannah studied the dates.
Lily had been born four years earlier.
Nate had been married to Hannah for five years.
She called Walter using the secure phone.
“Lily Monroe. Do you know anything about her?”
Walter was silent for several seconds.
“Send me the photograph.”
Rosa forwarded it.
Walter called back almost immediately.
“I know the birthmark.”
“Whose is it?”
“Your husband's grandmother had the same mark.”
Hannah looked toward the bassinet.
“Then the girl may be a Blackwood heir.”
“Or someone wants us to think she is.”
A message appeared on the secure phone.
From Celeste.
I can explain everything. Meet me alone, or Lily dies.
Hannah read the message aloud.
Rosa stood. “It's a trap.”
“Probably,” Hannah said.
Ethan shook his head. “You cannot go anywhere tonight.”
Hannah stared at the baby, then at the message.
She had no intention of walking into danger without a plan. But if Lily was connected to the trust, the child might be the key to stopping the people who had targeted her newborn.
She typed a reply.
Where?
Celeste sent an address beneath an abandoned theater in Brooklyn.
Then another message arrived.
Bring the necklace.
Hannah looked at the tiny transmitter wrapped in Walter's handkerchief.
She finally understood why Celeste wanted it.
The device wasn't just a tracker.
It contained a second compartment, hidden beneath the battery cover. Inside was a microSD card.
Rosa inserted it into an isolated laptop.
A single video file appeared.
Hannah pressed play.
Margaret Blackwood filled the screen, seated at her desk.
Julian stood behind her.
And between them sat Nate, unconscious, with blood on his shirt.
Margaret leaned toward the camera.
“When the baby is gone, tell my son that his wife ran away. He will believe it because he already chose another woman.”
Hannah stopped breathing.
The video continued.
Julian lifted a document.
“And if the child survives?”
Margaret smiled.
“Then we use the other heir.”
The screen went black.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then the laptop displayed a final line of text.
FILE ENCRYPTED. AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.
Hannah looked at the necklace.
May you like
The transmitter had been recording them for months.
And the woman who gave it to her had been collecting evidence of a conspiracy that reached far beyond the night her son was born.
