Chapter 6 - DIANE’S FIRST LIEDiane asked to speak before Detective Morgan confronted her with the missing-infant report.
She sat inside the hospital chapel under supervision, twisting a handkerchief between her fingers.
“I gave birth to a daughter,” she said.
Claire waited.
“The baby died.”
Thomas handled the funeral. Diane had been heavily medicated and never saw the body.
Three months later, he brought home an infant.
“He said the adoption had been arranged privately because I wasn’t emotionally strong enough for court interviews.”
“Did he tell you the child’s name?”
“Chloe.”
“Did you see legal papers?”
“Later.”
The documents identified Thomas and Diane as biological parents. Diane knew that was false.
She signed anyway.
“Why?”
“I wanted a baby.”
Claire let the admission sit between them.
Fear explained years of silence.
It did not explain the first choice.
“You believed she was adopted?”
“At first.”
“When did you realize she might have been stolen?”
Diane looked toward the chapel doors.
“When Rachel Bennett came to our house.”
Chloe was nearly two.
Rachel arrived carrying hospital records and a photograph of Clara. She said the Hales had her daughter.
Thomas called police and accused her of stalking.
Diane watched officers drag the woman from the porch.
That night, she compared the infant photograph with Chloe.
The same small crescent birthmark appeared near the left shoulder.
“What did you do?” Claire asked.
“Nothing.”
“You knew.”
“I told Thomas I wanted the truth. He said Rachel was dangerous and had tried to harm other children.”
“Did you believe him?”
Diane shook her head.
“Not completely.”
Yet she remained.
Thomas used Chloe’s forged identity to bind Diane to him. If the truth emerged, he said they would both be imprisoned and Chloe would enter foster care.
Diane began helping conceal injuries because every doctor visit risked genetic or identity questions.
The abuse intensified as Chloe grew older and asked why she had no baby photographs.
Thomas called those questions defiance.
“What about Savannah?” Claire asked.
“She is ours.”
“Are you certain?”
Diane hesitated.
The hesitation opened another door.
Savannah was born at Meridian Maternity Center three years before Chloe. Diane remembered the pregnancy and delivery, but the baby was taken for emergency treatment immediately afterward.
She did not hold Savannah until the following day.
Thomas managed all paperwork.
“I never questioned it until the Continuity files.”
Detective Morgan ordered independent DNA testing for both sisters and their parents.
Thomas objected through his attorney.
The court authorized testing due to the suspected infant abduction.
Meanwhile, Rachel Bennett’s case file revealed that she had not died.
After years in psychiatric care, she was released under another name. Her current location was protected.
Claire contacted the attorney who handled Rachel’s restoration petition.
Within two hours, a woman called the hospital.
Her voice shook when she heard Chloe was alive.
“Does she have a mark beneath her left shoulder?”
“Yes.”
“Does she rub two fingers together when she’s frightened?”
Detective Morgan looked through the glass.
Chloe sat on the trauma bed, pressing her thumb against her index finger again and again.
“Yes.”
Rachel began crying.
“I taught her that before they took her. I told her to count my fingers when the nursery lights scared her.”
She asked to come to the hospital.
Lauren advised waiting until Chloe chose whether she wanted contact.
Rachel agreed immediately.
That difference mattered.
She did not demand access because of biology.
She asked what Chloe needed.
The DNA results would take several hours.
Before they arrived, Savannah entered Chloe’s room.
A guard remained by the door.
Savannah stood several feet from the bed.
“I’m sorry.”
Chloe’s expression remained unreadable.
“For what?”
“For writing everything down and still leaving.”
“You said college was our escape plan.”
“I thought I could get money, an apartment, and come back.”
“You stopped answering.”
“Dad showed me a video.”
“What video?”
Savannah looked at the bruises beneath Chloe’s gown.
“It showed you telling him you hated me.”
Chloe stared.
“I never said that.”
“I know now.”
Thomas had manufactured mistrust between them exactly as the Continuity project described.
Savannah moved closer.
“There’s something else I remember about Nora.”
“What?”
“She called me by a different name.”
Chloe sat straighter.
“What name?”
“Clara.”
Savannah had assumed Nora confused the sisters.
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Now she realized the hidden girl knew Chloe’s original identity.
👉 Diane admitted she suspected Chloe had been stolen as a baby, while Nora’s use of the name Clara proved she knew the truth before investigators did.
