Grant agreed to one thing.
He would allow Lily to speak privately with us.
No bargaining.
No promises.
Just ten minutes without him listening.
Daniel refused to trust that claim, so Lily walked outside the building where Grant had taken her and called from a public sidewalk.
Daniel’s security team tracked the location immediately.
A former medical office in northern Illinois.
Police were notified but instructed not to approach until Lily confirmed she wanted intervention.
Eleanor gripped the phone.
“Come home.”
“I will.”
“Now.”
“Mom.”
The word stopped her.
Lily rarely sounded frightened, Eleanor later told us.
She sounded frightened now.
“I saw Anna.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“Are you sure?”
“DNA test.”
Daniel leaned closer.
“When?”
“Grant had a rapid relationship test arranged.”
“Those aren’t conclusive.”
“I know.”
Lily was a doctor.
She understood evidence better than most of us.
“But it strongly supports maternity.”
Her voice trembled.
“And she looks like me.”
Daniel stared toward the floor.
“What did she say?”
“That she thought I died.”
Eleanor began crying.
Lily continued.
“She remembers Rebecca.”
Dad sat down.
“What does she remember?”
“Not everything.”
Anna’s memories were fragmented.
Some periods clear.
Others missing.
She remembered meeting Rebecca through Grant.
She remembered both women being pregnant.
She remembered Rebecca being terrified Michael would tell Arthur about Daniel.
She remembered making an agreement.
“What agreement?” I asked.
Lily paused.
“Rebecca would help Anna disappear from Grant.”
“Why?”
“Anna wanted to expose his financial crimes.”
“And in exchange?”
“Anna would help Rebecca hide her pregnancy from Arthur.”
The arrangement had begun as mutual protection.
Two frightened women helping each other escape different kinds of control.
Then it changed.
Anna planned to keep her daughter.
Rebecca planned to surrender Daniel.
But Rebecca discovered Grant’s leverage over Michael and realized Anna’s baby could become leverage over Grant.
“She betrayed her,” Daniel said.
“Yes.”
“What happened the night you were born?” I asked.
Lily’s voice became quieter.
“Anna says Rebecca came to the clinic.”
“She took you?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t anyone stop her?”
“The clinic administrator worked for Grant.”
Of course.
Rebecca claimed she was moving Lily before Grant discovered the birth.
Anna believed her.
For several hours.
Then Rebecca disappeared with the baby.
Anna left the clinic against medical advice and went to Lake Geneva because Evelyn was the only person she thought might help.
“That’s when Rebecca pushed her down the stairs?”
“Anna remembers arguing.”
“What about the fall?”
“She remembers Rebecca grabbing her.”
Then darkness.
Dad whispered, “When I saw her, she had already been injured.”
“Yes.”
Grant arrived later.
He took Anna away.
Rebecca told him Lily had died during delivery.
Grant believed it because the clinic administrator confirmed the story.
“And Grandma?” Sebastian asked.
“She suspected the truth but didn’t know where Lily had gone.”
Eleanor looked devastated.
“She found us six years later.”
Lily became quiet.
“Mom.”
“Yes?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Eleanor shut her eyes.
“Fear.”
“That isn’t enough.”
“I know.”
“You’re a lawyer.”
“I know.”
“You taught me that people deserve informed choices about their own lives.”
“I know.”
“Except me.”
Eleanor had no defense.
“I was wrong.”
The simplicity of the answer mattered.
Lily breathed shakily.
“I don’t know what to do with that yet.”
“You don’t have to know today.”
Daniel looked away.
I recognized the expression.
He wanted to speak to his sister.
But he understood that becoming her brother did not give him immediate rights over her emotions.
Finally Lily asked, “Is Daniel there?”
“Yes.”
“Can I talk to him?”
Eleanor handed him the phone.
Daniel walked toward the window.
“Hi.”
Lily laughed nervously.
“This is absurd.”
“Yes.”
“I apparently have a brother.”
“Apparently I have a sister.”
“Half-sister?”
Daniel glanced at us.
“Not biologically. Different mothers. Same father isn’t proven.”
Lily paused.
“Wait.”
Everyone froze.
“What?”
“If Anna is my mother and Michael isn’t necessarily my father…”
Daniel turned.
“We assumed.”
“Why?”
Because of Grandma’s deception.
Because Mom wanted everyone to believe Lily and Daniel were twins.
Because Anna knew Michael.
Because the story had been shaped that way.
But no record named Lily’s father.
Lily asked the question that should have been asked hours earlier.
“Who is my father?”
Nobody answered.
Michael spoke from beside Dad.
“I don’t know.”
Lily heard him.
“You knew Anna.”
“Barely.”
“Were you involved with her?”
“No.”
“Could you be my father?”
Michael hesitated.
“I don’t think so.”
“That isn’t no.”
“No.”
The certainty came stronger.
“I was never intimate with Anna.”
Daniel looked toward the photograph.
“Then why did Grandma let everyone think Lily was your child?”
Michael stared.
“To protect the real father.”
Dad’s expression changed.
“From Grant?”
“Maybe.”
Eleanor took the phone again.
“Lily, ask Anna.”
“She won’t tell me.”
“Why?”
“She says it isn’t her secret alone.”
The sentence unsettled me.
A father whose identity involved someone else.
Who?
Dad looked at Michael.
Michael looked at Dad.
Then both looked toward the photograph of Rebecca and Anna.
Sebastian noticed.
“Oh, come on.”
“What?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“No. We are not doing another surprise relative.”
Nobody laughed.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number again.
But this time the sender attached a scanned document.
A paternity acknowledgment.
Infant: unnamed female.
Mother: Anna Voss.
Father: redacted.
The signature beneath the blacked-out name remained partially visible.
Only the first initial.
A.
Dad stopped breathing.
Michael stared.
Daniel frowned.
“What?”
I looked at Dad.
“Arthur.”
He shook his head immediately.
“No.”
“Dad.”
“No.”
His reaction was too strong.
Michael stepped closer.
“Art?”
Dad backed away.
“I never slept with Anna.”
“Then why are you reacting?”
“Because I know that signature.”
“Whose?”
Dad stared at the page.
“My father’s.”
Silence.
Grandpa Henry Montgomery.
Evelyn’s husband.
My grandfather.
Daniel whispered, “That would make Lily…”
Dad finished.
“My half-sister.”
Eleanor sat down hard.
Sebastian rubbed both hands over his face.
“Okay. I officially give up on the family tree.”
Michael took the phone.
He enlarged the signature.
“That looks like Dad’s.”
“When did he die?” I asked.
“1999,” Dad said.
One year after Lily’s birth.
“Could he have had an affair with Anna?”
“She was barely twenty.”
Dad looked sick.
“He was sixty-three.”
Michael’s expression darkened.
“That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
“No.”
“But Anna said the identity wasn’t her secret alone.”
Dad stared at the document.
“If Dad was her father, Mom knew.”
“How?”
“Rebecca knew everything happening around Grant.”
Michael nodded slowly.
“And Henry had business connections.”
Eleanor suddenly stood.
“What?”
“Evelyn’s original trust.”
“What about it?”
“It changed in 1999.”
My pulse quickened.
“After Lily was born.”
“Yes.”
“What changed?”
“She removed Henry as co-trustee.”
Dad stared.
“Why?”
“She never told me.”
Michael whispered, “Maybe she found out.”
If Henry had fathered Anna’s child, Evelyn had not merely been protecting an unknown baby.
She had been protecting her husband’s daughter.
That would explain the forged maternal record using Evelyn’s name.
Not because Evelyn was pretending to be Lily’s biological mother.
Because legally attaching Lily to Evelyn might conceal Henry while keeping the child inside the Montgomery family structure.
It was complicated.
Maybe deliberately.
Daniel’s phone rang.
His security chief.
He answered.
Listened.
Then his face hardened.
“What?”
He put the call on speaker.
“We located the building where Lily is.”
“Is she safe?”
“Yes.”
“Grant?”
“Inside.”
“Anna?”
“Inside.”
“Police?”
“Staging nearby.”
Then the security chief added something else.
“There’s another person who arrived five minutes ago.”
“Who?”
“A woman matching Rebecca Montgomery.”
Dad stood.
“How did she get there?”
Nobody knew.
Mom had apparently been released pending further questioning because no violent charge had yet been filed.
Daniel swore.
“Tell Lily to leave now.”
Before anyone could call her, Lily’s number appeared on Eleanor’s phone.
She answered.
“Lily?”
Heavy breathing.
Then Lily whispered.
“Rebecca is here.”
“Leave.”
“I’m trying.”
A crash sounded through the call.
Someone shouted.
Grant.
Then Mom.
Anna screamed.
Lily’s voice became urgent.
“She has a gun.”
Dad went white.
“Who?”
Lily answered.
“Rebecca.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 16: Rebecca Arrived With A Gun And Forced Anna To Remember 1998, But Her Confession Exposed Who Had Really Ordered Lily’s Disappearance
Christmas Dinner Was Almost Over When My Parents Told Me To Leave, Then Mom Asked The Question Dad Was Never Supposed To Hear
Part 15 of 40
