Chapter 9 - Rebecca’s missing daughter
Eleanor denied stealing anyone’s child.
“She is manipulating you.”
Clara placed the photograph in front of her.
“Who is the baby?”
Eleanor stared.
“Rebecca’s daughter.”
Richard gripped the chair.
“I have a niece?”
“Yes.”
“You never told us.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Rebecca was supposed to be dead.”
The answer was monstrous in its simplicity.
Rebecca gave birth three years after disappearing from public life.
The father was never named.
According to Eleanor, the private clinic helped Rebecca live under a new identity.
Then Rebecca became increasingly obsessed with exposing Whitmore Biomedical.
“She wanted to go public,” Eleanor said.
“Good,” Clara replied.
“She was unstable.”
“Stop using that word as if it answers everything.”
Eleanor looked tired.
“She believed people were following her.”
“Were they?”
“Yes.”
“Then that isn’t paranoia.”
Eleanor had no response.
When Rebecca’s daughter was six months old, Eleanor moved the baby without Rebecca’s knowledge.
Richard stood.
“You kidnapped her.”
“I protected her.”
“From her mother?”
“From the people searching for Rebecca.”
“Where did you take her?”
“A family arranged by Henry.”
Clara stared.
“You trusted your husband after admitting you suspected him?”
“I trusted no one. But I had no choice.”
“You always had a choice.”
Eleanor looked at her sharply.
“You say that because no one has ever threatened to kill all your children in the same sentence.”
The room went quiet.
Clara thought of Lily.
Maybe that was how every terrible decision began.
Fear.
Then justification.
Then secrecy.
Then someone innocent paying for it.
“Where is Rebecca’s daughter now?” Maya asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Name?”
“Her birth name was Anna.”
“Adoptive name?”
“I was never told.”
Richard laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
The photograph became the next lead.
A hospital bracelet around the baby’s ankle contained a partial number.
Detective Grant traced it to a private maternity clinic that closed sixteen years earlier.
Archived records listed:
BABY GIRL WHITMORE.
TRANSFER AUTHORIZED.
Receiving guardian:
HENRY WHITMORE.
Then nothing.
Henry had hidden the child personally.
Daniel, now strong enough for longer conversations, heard the news.
He was not surprised.
“You knew?”
“Rebecca told me.”
“Where is Anna?”
“Maybe Richmond.”
“Maybe?”
“She sent picture.”
Daniel asked Clara for his personal cloud account.
Inside a hidden folder was an image Rebecca sent four months earlier.
A young woman leaving Whitmore Biomedical headquarters.
Blonde.
Approximately twenty.
Name badge visible:
ANNA VALE — COMPLIANCE ANALYST.
Richard stared.
“She works for us.”
Clara felt another piece click into place.
A hidden daughter placed inside the very company her mother tried to expose.
“Did she know who she was?” Maya asked.
Daniel shook his head.
“Rebecca said no.”
The company records showed Anna had joined eighteen months ago.
Exactly when Richard first detected financial irregularities.
Clara looked at Richard.
“Your niece entered the company, and then fake accounts appeared under your credentials.”
He understood.
“You think Anna created them.”
“Or someone used her.”
Maya obtained Anna’s access logs.
She had entered archival research systems connected to VX-41.
She had also accessed executive security settings.
Including the filter that blocked Rebecca’s message to Paul.
Richard looked sick.
“She could have intercepted it.”
Eleanor said:
“Then Rebecca’s daughter is involved.”
Clara turned.
“Or someone is setting her up.”
Eleanor’s expression showed she did not appreciate the parallel.
Anna’s apartment was empty.
No sign of forced entry.
Her phone disconnected.
Her bank account untouched.
On her kitchen table was a framed photograph of Eleanor from a company gala.
The glass over Eleanor’s face was cracked.
Beneath it sat a note:
SHE STOLE MY LIFE BEFORE I KNEW I HAD ONE.
Detective Grant found another item.
A medication vial.
VX-41.
Batch number matching the compound found in Daniel.
Richard stared.
“That proves it.”
“No,” Clara said.
“It proves the vial is here.”
He looked at her.
“You think someone planted it?”
“I think every obvious answer in this family has turned out to be half a lie.”
That night, Anna’s badge was used at Whitmore Biomedical headquarters.
Police raced there.
They found no Anna.
But someone had opened the restricted archive.
One file was missing.
The original VX-41 participant registry.
Security footage showed a woman leaving with it.
Young.
Blonde.
Anna.
Then another camera showed someone following her.
Eleanor.
Richard stared at his mother.
“You said you didn’t know where she was.”
Eleanor looked shaken.
“I didn’t.”
The timestamp was current.
Only twenty minutes earlier.
Eleanor had been inside the hospital with them at that exact time.
Impossible.
Unless the woman in the footage was not Eleanor.
Rebecca.
Again.
The same coat.
Same posture.
Same borrowed appearance.
Rebecca was following her daughter.
May you like
And neither woman had contacted police.
👉 Rebecca and her hidden daughter were now moving together through the company’s secret archive—but the missing participant registry suggested they were searching for someone more important than Daniel’s attacker.
