Chapter 9 - the blood test Arthur demanded
Arthur could not explain with taps alone.
So Detective Cole arranged a communication specialist.
Using a letter board and eye movements, Arthur slowly formed words.
The process took nearly an hour.
Alex waited beside him.
Finally:
T H O M A S
N O T
D E A D
Beatrice closed her eyes.
Arthur continued.
T H O M A S
M Y
S O N
Then:
A L E X
T E S T
Alex frowned.
“What test?”
Arthur pointed toward his arm.
Blood.
Cole understood.
“You want Alex to take a DNA test?”
Two taps.
Yes.
The room went quiet.
Alex looked at Teresa.
Her face had become pale.
“Mom?”
“I don’t know what he means.”
Arthur struck once.
No.
Teresa began shaking.
“Arthur, please.”
Alex felt anger.
“What do you know?”
Teresa sat down.
“Thomas was my husband.”
Alex stopped breathing.
Derek stared at her.
“What?”
The father who raised Alex and Derek, Richard Whitmore, died fifteen years earlier.
Teresa had been married to him for thirty-two years.
Now she claimed Arthur’s hidden son Thomas had also been her husband?
“No.”
“Before Richard.”
Beatrice whispered:
“Teresa.”
“Enough.”
Teresa looked at Alex.
“I married Thomas when I was nineteen.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
“He was charming. Brilliant. Furious at the Whitmores.”
“Why?”
“Arthur refused to acknowledge him publicly.”
Arthur tried to respond.
Teresa continued.
“Thomas disappeared after less than a year. I was told he died in a factory accident.”
“Were you pregnant?”
Teresa began crying.
“Yes.”
Alex stared.
“With me?”
She nodded.
Derek sat heavily.
Alex felt the room tilt.
Richard Whitmore had raised him.
Given him his last name.
Treated him as a son.
But biologically, Alex was Arthur’s grandson through Thomas.
Derek was Richard’s biological son.
That meant Alex—not Derek—was connected to Thomas’s branch.
Why did that matter?
The Continuation Trust.
If Thomas remained alive, Thomas had senior family rights.
If Thomas died, those rights could pass to his child.
Alex.
Then to Lily.
The fortune had not accidentally fallen toward Lily.
It followed Thomas’s bloodline.
Clara discovered that.
“Why did nobody tell me?”
Teresa whispered:
“Arthur made me promise.”
Arthur struck once.
No.
Teresa stared.
“No?”
Arthur used the board.
R I C H A R D
Richard had demanded secrecy?
Beatrice reluctantly confirmed it.
Richard knew Teresa was pregnant when he married her.
He raised Alex willingly.
But Thomas’s existence threatened the family structure, business ownership, and inheritance.
So everyone kept quiet.
“Did Clara know?”
Teresa nodded.
“She found my marriage certificate.”
“When?”
“A week before she died.”
Alex understood Clara’s strange behavior on their final calls.
She had discovered her husband’s identity had been built on another family secret.
Not that Alex was illegitimate.
But that Thomas had been erased.
Cole obtained DNA.
Results confirmed Alex was biologically related to Arthur exactly as expected for a grandson.
Not proof alone of Thomas, but combined records made it nearly certain.
Then something more disturbing appeared.
Thomas Whitmore had not died in a factory accident.
No death certificate existed.
His Social Security number remained active for eleven years after his supposed death.
Final record:
A property purchase in Indiana.
Police traced aliases.
Thomas became:
Thomas Reed.
Then Michael Reed.
Then Michael Cross.
Cole stared at the last surname.
Cross.
Julian Cross’s father was named Michael.
Alex looked at Julian.
“No.”
Julian’s face drained.
“My father died when I was twelve.”
“Did you ever meet Arthur?”
“No.”
“Did Clara know your father’s full history?”
Julian looked shaken.
“She asked about him.”
“When?”
“Two days before she died.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That he died in 1998.”
Cole checked.
The death record for Michael Cross had been signed by Dr. Vincent Mercer.
The same doctor who signed Clara’s death certificate.
Alex felt cold.
Another convenient death certified by the same man.
Mercer was confronted.
He denied knowing Michael Cross was Thomas Whitmore.
“I was told he was terminal.”
“Did you see the body?”
“No.”
“Then why sign?”
“A superior physician handled it.”
“Name.”
Mercer hesitated.
“Dr. Samuel Bell.”
Deceased.
Or supposedly deceased.
Every path led to identities disappearing behind paperwork.
Then the lab analyzing Clara’s blood called.
The digoxin found in her body came from the same manufacturing batch as Arthur’s medication.
But investigators discovered Arthur’s bottle had been refilled three weeks earlier.
Pharmacy surveillance showed the person picking it up.
A man.
Tall.
Gray coat.
Face turned away.
He signed:
A. WHITMORE.
Not Arthur.
Alex.
Someone had used Alex’s name to collect the medication later found in Clara’s body.
At the same time, Alex’s email account had authorized her accelerated burial.
Cole looked at him.
“Someone is building a case against you.”
Alex stared toward the closed doors where his wife’s casket remained.
Clara had apparently realized it before dying.
That explained her final warning to Teresa:
May you like
If Alex comes home, they’ll blame him too.
👉 Arthur’s DNA demand revealed Alex was Thomas Whitmore’s secret son, while new evidence showed someone had been deliberately using Alex’s identity to make him look responsible for Clara’s death.
