Chapter 30: The Paperwork

I clutched the dashboard as Mark whipped the Porsche around the corner, narrowly missing a parked delivery truck. The engine roared, a guttural sound that vibrated in my chest. Behind us, the road was empty, but the feeling of being hunted prickled on the back of my neck.

"Where are they?" Mark asked, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror. "Where are the bodies?"

"The greenhouse," he said. "The old one behind the carriage house. She had me dig the trenches when I was sixteen. Said we were putting in a new irrigation system. But we never laid any pipes."

"Trenches?" Ben asked from the back seat. "How many?"

"Three," Mark said. "But she only used one."

"For Alice," Ben whispered.

"And maybe for the others she didn't need," Mark added darkly.

We sped toward the private airfield, the city lights fading into the darkness of the industrial outskirts. The airfield was a small, private strip used by corporate jets and people who didn't want to be seen.

"There," Mark said, pointing.

Through the chain-link fence, I could see a sleek white jet idling on the tarmac. A black SUV was parked next to it. Two figures were walking toward the stairs.

One was tall, elegant in a trench coat. Edith.

The other was slumped in a wheelchair, being pushed by the driver.

"Clara," Leo said, pressing his face to the glass.

Mark slammed on the brakes at the gate. A security guard stepped out of the booth, hand raised.

"Private property," the guard said. "Turn around."

Mark rolled down the window. "I'm Mark Sterling. That's my mother on the plane. I need to speak to her."

The guard shook his head. "Mrs. Sterling left specific instructions. No visitors. No exceptions."

"She has a hostage," I shouted from the passenger seat. "The woman in the wheelchair is being taken against her will."

The guard looked at me, then back at the plane. He hesitated.

That was all Mark needed. He gunned the engine and swerved around the gate arm, tires screeching on the asphalt.

"Hey!" the guard yelled, reaching for his radio.

We tore across the tarmac. The jet's engines were spooling up, a high-pitched whine that cut through the night. The stairs were retracting.

"She's taking off," Ben yelled.

Mark drove the Porsche right up to the nose of the plane, blocking its path. He jumped out before the car even stopped moving.

"Mother!" he screamed.

The stairs stopped moving. Edith appeared in the doorway of the plane. She looked down at us, her face a mask of cold fury.

"You are a disappointment, Mark," she called out over the roar of the engines.

"And you're a murderer," Mark shouted back. "I know about Alice. I know about the greenhouse."

Edith didn't flinch. She just smiled, that terrible shark smile.

"Alice was a liability," she said. "Just like you."

She signaled to someone inside the plane. The stairs started to retract again.

"No!" I yelled. I scrambled out of the car. "Clara! Leo is here! He's here!"

I pointed to the back seat of the Porsche, where Leo was climbing out, helped by Ben.

Edith looked at Leo. For a second, her composure faltered. She looked at the son she had stolen, the son she had buried in a basement for thirty years.

"He's dead," she whispered, more to herself than to us. "He died in 1988."

"He's alive," I shouted. "And so am I. And so is Mark. We're all alive, Edith. And we're all coming for you."

The pilot leaned out of the cockpit window. "Mrs. Sterling, we have to go. Security is coming."

Sirens wailed in the distance. The guard had called for backup.

Edith looked at the approaching lights. She looked at us. And then she made a choice.

She stepped back into the plane. The door started to close.

"Wait!" Clara's voice rang out, thin but sharp.

We couldn't see her, but we could hear the struggle.

"Let me go, Edith! Let me go!"

"Sit down!" Edith hissed.

Then, a shape flew out of the closing door. It wasn't a person.

It was a bag.

A small, navy blue canvas bag.

It hit the tarmac with a thud and skidded to a halt at my feet.

The door sealed shut. The engines roared. The plane began to turn, taxiing around the Porsche.

"No!" Leo screamed, running toward the plane. Ben tackled him, holding him back from the jet wash.

We watched helplessly as the plane gathered speed and lifted into the black sky, taking Clara and the truth with it.

I looked down at the bag at my feet.

It was the diaper bag. The one from the hidden nursery.

I unzipped it.

Inside were the baby clothes. The formula.

And a metal box.

Not the gray cash box from the wall. This one was smaller. Black steel.

I opened it.

Inside was a stack of papers.

I picked up the top one. It was a discharge summary from St. Jude's Hospital.

*Patient: Edith Sterling.*
*Date: September 14, 1987.*
*Procedure: Hysterectomy.*

*Notes: Patient is sterile. Cannot carry to term.*

I stared at the paper. 1987. A year before we were born.

She knew. She knew she could never have a child.

I picked up the next paper. It was a letter. From Dr. Thorne.

*Dear Edith,*

*The arrangement is set. Clara is five months along. I have started the sedatives. She won't remember a thing.*

*Regarding the other matter: Maria is proving difficult. She wants to keep the baby. I may need to take drastic measures.*

*Regarding the third option: The nurse, Alice, is young and naive. She thinks I'm going to marry her. I can handle her.*

*Just make sure the money is in the account.*

*Yours,*
*Aris*

I felt sick. It was all there. The premeditation. The cruelty.

But there was one more document at the bottom of the box.

It wasn't a letter. It wasn't a medical record.

It was a birth certificate.

But it wasn't for Leo. Or Mark. Or me.

It was for a baby born in 1955.

*Name: Clara Sterling.*
*Mother: Martha Sterling.*
*Father: Unknown.*

I frowned. Martha was their mother. That was normal.

But then I looked at the second certificate stapled to it.

*Name: Edith Sterling.*
*Born: 1953.*
*Mother: Martha Sterling.*
*Father: Unknown.*

They were sisters.

But then I saw the note scribbled in the margin of Edith's birth certificate. In handwriting I didn't recognize.

*Adopted. 1954.*

Edith wasn't a Sterling.

She was adopted.

Clara was the only blood heir.

Edith had no claim to the fortune. No claim to the house. No claim to the Trust.

Unless Clara was incapacitated.

Unless Clara's heirs were removed.

She hadn't stolen the babies just to have children. She had stolen them to erase the bloodline she wasn't part of.

She was the cuckoo in the nest.

I looked up at the sky, where the lights of the jet were disappearing into the clouds.

"She's not our aunt," I whispered. "She's nobody."

I looked at Mark. At Leo.

"We have to bring her back," I said. "We have to get Clara back."

"How?" Mark asked. "She's gone."

I held up the black box.

"We have the one thing she wants more than money," I said.

"What?"

"Her secret," I said. "We know she's a fraud. And if we release this..."

I looked at the birth certificate again.

"She loses everything. Not just the money. The name. The identity. The only thing that ever mattered to her."

I pulled out my phone. I dialed the number for the Zurich police.

"I want to report a fugitive," I said. "Her name is Edith Doe."