Chapter 14 - The Birth Record
Caleb did not speak during the drive back.
June sat beside him.
Victor rode in the rear seat under Thomas’s guard.
At Whitcomb headquarters they searched archived family records.
Birth certificates.
Hospital forms.
Trust documents.
Everything looked normal.
Caleb Whitcomb.
Born October 18, 1984.
Mother: Evelyn Hartwell Whitcomb.
Father: Warren Whitcomb.
June found the discrepancy.
Blood type.
Evelyn was O-negative.
Warren was O-negative.
Caleb was AB-positive.
He stared at the screen.
“That can’t happen.”
June nodded slowly.
“No.”
Victor closed his eyes.
Caleb turned toward him.
“Who am I?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just told me my mother believed I wasn’t hers.”
“She discovered the blood records shortly before she died.”
“How does a mother not know her own child?”
Victor hesitated.
“Because there was a fire in the maternity wing the night you were born.”
June looked up.
Caleb remembered hearing about it.
Three infants evacuated.
One nurse injured.
“She thought babies were switched?”
Victor nodded.
“She became convinced.”
“Was she right?”
“I don’t know.”
Caleb felt the ground disappearing beneath him.
Everything he knew was becoming conditional.
His mother.
His father.
His brother.
His daughter.
Then Thomas entered.
“We recovered something from the South Harbor warehouse.”
He placed a phone on the desk.
Noah’s.
Meredith’s son had been sedated but was alive.
The phone contained dozens of messages from Gabriel.
But one contact appeared repeatedly.
M.W.
Caleb frowned.
“Meredith?”
June shook her head.
“Maybe.”
Thomas opened the thread.
The messages began six months earlier.
M.W.: Caleb is becoming suspicious.
Gabriel: Keep him focused on the nanny.
M.W.: June is harder to control than expected.
Gabriel: Then remove her.
Caleb’s jaw tightened.
Another message.
M.W.: Meredith is becoming unstable.
Gabriel: She was always disposable.
June stared.
“M.W. isn’t Meredith.”
Caleb looked at Victor.
Victor had gone pale.
“What?”
Victor whispered, “Margaret Whitcomb.”
Caleb stared.
“No.”
Thomas continued scrolling.
The final message had been sent that morning.
M.W.: Victor has resurfaced.
Gabriel: Then finish what you should have finished in 1996.
Caleb looked at Victor.
Victor whispered:
“Margaret and Gabriel are working together.”
June shook her head.
“Then why did Margaret give us the safe-deposit key?”
May you like
Victor looked toward Caleb.
“Because she wanted you to find me.”
