Chapter 6 - THE OTHER DIANEPolice verified that Diane had never left custody.
The woman reflected behind Emily was nearly identical in height, age and appearance. She wore Diane’s hairstyle, glasses and gold earrings.
Natalie remembered Emily mentioning a sister Lucas’s family never discussed.
Diane denied having one.
Detective Ellis found a sealed birth record.
Diane Reed had an identical twin named Diana, born nine minutes later.
Diana’s death certificate reported that she died at seventeen in a car accident.
No body had been independently identified.
A photograph from St. Catherine’s old staff directory showed a woman called Dee Rowan, a patient-relations coordinator.
She had Diane’s face.
Diana had remained alive under another identity.
While Diane managed Lucas’s home life, Diana managed the clinic records surrounding his wives.
Ava confronted Diane during a second monitored interview.
“You had a twin inside St. Catherine’s.”
Diane closed her eyes.
“She was supposed to remain hidden.”
“Why?”
“Our father used us to sign documents for each other. Insurance applications. Property transfers. Medical consents.”
The twins could place one woman in public while the other completed a transaction elsewhere.
When their father died, Diana entered the clinic network. Diane married and later trained Lucas to use identity confusion the same way.
“Emily saw through it,” Diane said.
“She noticed you appeared in two places.”
“So you burned her?”
“Lucas started the fire.”
“You identified another body.”
“Yes.”
Diane admitted helping stage Emily’s death after Diana promised to keep her alive inside Maternal Continuity.
She told herself sending Emily to the clinic was mercy.
Then the clinic used Emily’s child as leverage.
Diane stopped asking questions because every answer threatened to expose her earlier crimes.
“What does Diana want with my baby?” Ava asked.
“Not your baby. Your trust.”
“Then why preserve my embryo?”
“To make the beneficiary replaceable.”
If Ava’s current pregnancy failed, the second child could be presented as the surviving baby. Medical records, DNA and dates could be adjusted through St. Catherine’s.
Lucas would publicly grieve.
Diane would seek guardianship.
Diana would control the hidden mother.
The money would move through all of them.
“You built a system where children could be exchanged like documents,” Ava said.
Diane looked toward the floor.
“Yes.”
Detective Ellis requested the location of the second pregnant woman.
Diane claimed she did not know.
But she knew the name Lucas used for her.
Sabrina Vale.
Lucas had been seeing Sabrina for nearly a year. He called her his future wife.
Sabrina believed the baby she carried was biologically hers and Lucas’s.
She did not know the embryo came from Ava.
The hospital’s patient directory contained no Sabrina Vale.
A nurse remembered a pregnant woman matching her description arriving through a private ambulance shortly after Ava.
She was taken to a secured delivery suite despite not being registered publicly.
Police reached the suite.
It was empty.
Fresh blood-test tubes remained on the counter. A fetal monitor displayed a recent heartbeat.
One wall concealed a service elevator connecting directly to St. Catherine’s administrative tunnel.
Sabrina had been moved.
Ava’s contractions suddenly intensified.
Dr. Bennett rushed into the room.
“The baby is coming early.”
Ava gripped the bed rail.
At the same moment, officers found a handwritten schedule in the empty suite.
DELIVERY A — 11:40 P.M.
DELIVERY B — 11:40 P.M.
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Both births had been planned for the exact same minute.
👉 Ava and the unknown surrogate were being forced into simultaneous deliveries so their babies’ identities could be exchanged.
