Chapter 9 - THE WOMAN WHO LIED TO EVERYONECeleste’s video signal moved through the mansion network.
Police could not identify the room.
“You expect us to believe you now?” Claire asked.
Celeste looked at her identical sister through the screen.
“No. Belief is what destroyed all of us.”
She explained that the original locket had been switched after the maternity log was written.
Claire’s father placed it around Baby A.
Miriam moved it to Baby B during the hospital escape because she believed the locket marked the child Robert intended to kill.
Later, Celeste copied the necklace so both girls could carry the same protection.
The genuine locket proved only which infant Miriam selected that night.
Not who had given birth to her.
“Then what identifies us?” Sophia asked.
Celeste held up two sealed envelopes.
“Original placental samples.”
Robert moved toward the screen.
Police forced him back.
“You said those were destroyed.”
“I told you what kept my daughters alive.”
Claire stared.
“Your daughters?”
Celeste paused.
Then corrected herself.
“Our daughters.”
She claimed Claire and Thomas had created several embryos during fertility treatment. Without Claire’s knowledge, one embryo was transferred into Celeste after she suffered repeated miscarriages.
Celeste carried Claire’s biological child.
Claire carried another embryo from the same treatment cycle.
The girls were genetic sisters born to different women.
That explained the near-twin resemblance and different mitochondrial profiles.
Sophia and Julie were both Claire’s biological daughters in one sense, but Celeste had carried and delivered one.
“Which one did you carry?” Julie asked.
Celeste refused to answer through the unsecured call.
“Come to the old chapel beneath the house.”
Officer Ortiz rejected the demand.
Celeste smiled.
“You have already searched the chapel three times. Robert never told you it has a lower room.”
Robert’s expression confirmed it.
The Ashford family chapel had been sealed after Claire’s father died. A private staircase connected it to the mansion’s hidden corridors.
Police located the entrance behind an altar panel.
Before they descended, Robert spoke quietly to Sophia.
“Celeste will tell you whatever gives her control.”
“You did the same.”
“I kept you alive.”
“You kept me useful.”
Robert had no answer.
Inside the lower chapel, officers found medical files, photographs, and a wall covered with timelines.
Celeste was not there.
She had prepared the room as a message.
A projector activated automatically.
Video from twenty-four years earlier showed Claire’s hospital room.
The recording had no sound.
Claire lay sedated.
Celeste entered carrying one newborn.
A nurse placed a second beside her.
Then another woman appeared.
She wore Claire’s face.
Sophia stared.
There were three identical adult women in the room.
Claire.
Celeste.
And someone else.
Claire whispered:
“Rebecca.”
Their younger sister.
Family records claimed Rebecca died at birth.
She had survived under another identity and worked for the Ashford family’s private medical foundation.
Rebecca took one infant.
Celeste took the other.
Robert entered minutes later to find the room empty.
“So Robert really wasn’t the first kidnapper,” Julie said.
Claire’s hands began shaking.
“No.”
“Was Rebecca?”
Claire looked toward the paused image.
“She was supposed to protect them.”
The projector resumed.
Rebecca turned toward the hidden camera before leaving.
Around her neck was the original Virgin Mary locket.
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The necklaces worn by Sophia and Julie were both copies.
👉 The object everyone trusted to identify the heiress had never belonged to either girl.
