Chapter 28: The Blood

*I was Leo's twin.*

The words didn't just rewrite my history. They incinerated it. I wasn't the replacement baby. I wasn't the doctor's bastard bought to fill a hole. I was the other half of the whole.

Clara hadn't been pregnant with one baby. She had been pregnant with two.

"Ben," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "Look at the dates again."

He pulled up the photos of the birth certificates on his phone.

*Leo Sterling. June 14, 1988.*

*Sofia Thorne. June 15, 1988.*

"They're a day apart," Ben said. "Twins are usually born minutes apart."

"Not always," I said. "And not if the birth was... complicated. Or staged."

I thought of the diary. *The kicking woke me up... He's restless.* Clara always referred to the baby as *he*. *My little star.*

"Maybe she didn't know," I said. "Maybe she didn't know there were two. Ultrasound technology in the eighties wasn't what it is now. And if Thorne was her doctor... if he was in on it..."

"He could have hidden the second heartbeat," Ben finished. "He could have told her there was only one."

"Why?" I asked. "Why split us up?"

"Because Edith needed a girl," Ben said. "And maybe... maybe Thorne wanted one too. Or maybe it was just easier to hide two babies if they were separated."

I looked at the genetic report again. *Von Willebrand Disease.* The bleeding disorder.

Leo had it. I had it.

It was a genetic link stronger than any paper trail.

"We need to get back," I said. "We need to tell Leo."

The flight back north was a blur of turbulence and anxiety. I watched the clouds outside the window, thinking about the brother I had never known. The brother who had been living in a hole while I was living in a lie.

We landed at midnight. Ben drove us straight to his apartment, where Leo was waiting.

He was sitting on the couch, staring at the TV. He had cleaned up—showered, shaved the matted beard. He looked less like a wild man and more like a ghost.

And he looked like me.

The shape of the jaw. The set of the eyes. Even the way he held his hands in his lap.

"Sarah," he said when we walked in. He stood up, awkward in Ben's borrowed clothes.

"Leo," I said. "We found something."

I showed him the DNA results. I explained the blood types. I told him about the twins.

He listened in silence, his eyes wide. He didn't cry. He just looked at me, searching my face for the reflection of his own.

"A sister," he whispered. "I have a sister."

"We were together," I said. "In the beginning. Before she took us."

He reached out and touched my arm. His hand was warm. Solid.

"She told me I was alone," he said. "She told me I was the only one who mattered. The heir."

"She lied," I said. "She lied about everything."

My phone buzzed.

It was a notification from my bank.

*ALERT: Large Transfer Initiated. $50,000.00.*

I stared at the screen. Fifty thousand dollars. The exact amount of the check Edith wrote to Thorne in 1988.

But I didn't have fifty thousand dollars. My account was empty.

I logged into the app. The transfer wasn't coming *out* of my account.

It was coming *in*.

*Sender: The Sterling Trust.*

*Memo: Hush Money.*

I dropped the phone.

"She knows," I said. "She knows we found Thorne. She's trying to buy me off."

"Or she's trying to frame you," Ben said. "Think about it. Suddenly you have fifty grand in your account? If she accuses you of extortion..."

"We need to move," I said. "We need to get to the police before she spins this."

"Wait," Leo said. He was looking at the TV.

It was the local news. The anchor was standing in front of a building engulfed in flames.

"Breaking news," the ticker read. "Fire at historic property on Maple Street."

I knew that street. I knew that house.

It was the Hoard.

"No," I whispered.

The camera zoomed in. The Victorian was an inferno. Flames licked out of the windows, consuming the decades of paper, the rot, the secrets.

"She burned it," Ben said. "She burned the evidence."

"Clara's diaries," I said. "The nursery. The box in the wall."

"It's all gone," Ben said.

I looked at Leo. He was trembling.

"She said she would," he whispered. "She said if I ever tried to leave, she would burn the world down."

My phone buzzed again.

Another transfer. Another $50,000.

*Memo: Run.*

She wasn't framing me. She was warning me.

She was burning the house to destroy the past. And she was paying me to destroy my future.

But she had forgotten one thing.

The fire could burn the paper. It could burn the furniture.

But it couldn't burn the blood.

"We don't need the house," I said, turning to Leo and Ben. "We have the DNA. We have the witness."

I looked at Leo.

"We're going to the hospital," I said. "We're going to get a blood test. A real one. On the record."

"And then?" Ben asked.

"And then," I said, "we're going to introduce the world to the real Leo Sterling."

We ran to the car. The night air smelled of smoke, even miles away from the fire.

I drove fast, weaving through the late-night traffic.

But as we pulled into the hospital parking lot, I saw it.

The black Mercedes.

It was parked near the emergency entrance.

And standing next to it, talking to a police officer, was Edith.

She saw us. She stopped talking. She pointed at my car.

The officer turned. He put his hand on his holster.

"Sarah Sterling?" he shouted. "Step out of the vehicle!"

"It's a trap," Ben said.

"She called them," I said. "She told them I kidnapped him."

I looked at Leo. He was terrified.

"Don't let her take me," he said.

"I won't," I said.

I threw the car into reverse.

"Sarah, what are you doing?" Ben yelled.

"I'm not stopping," I said.

I spun the wheel, the tires screaming. I wasn't going to the police. I wasn't going to the press.

I was going to the one place Edith couldn't follow.

The one place where her money didn't matter.

I hit the gas, aiming for the exit.

"Where are we going?" Leo asked, gripping the door handle.

"To the only family we have left," I said.

"We're going to find Alice's grave."