Chapter 10 – THE DOCTOR’S CONFESSION

I didn’t tell Luca.

Not yet.

If I showed him the book, it would destroy the peace they had just found.

I needed to know the truth first.

I took the day off.

I rented a car and drove to the address listed next to Dr. Aris Thorne’s name.

It was an old, crumbling brick building on the south side of Chicago.

A faded sign read: Thorne Medical Records.

I walked inside.

An elderly man was boxing up files.

He looked up.

“We’re closed permanently,” he said.

“Dr. Thorne?”

He nodded.

I pulled the black notebook from my purse and placed it on the counter.

He looked at it.

The color drained from his face.

“Where did you get that?”

“Frank Moretti is in federal custody,” I lied smoothly. “The police have his files. They sent me to verify.”

Dr. Thorne gripped the edge of the counter.

“I told Frank it was a mistake. I told him.”

“What was a mistake?”

The doctor sighed, rubbing his tired eyes.

“Luca and Elena were desperate for a child. They tried for years. Elena’s eggs were unviable. They hired a surrogate.”

“And?”

“The surrogate miscarried at four months.”

I frowned.

“But Sophie exists.”

Dr. Thorne looked away.

“Frank paid me.”

“For what?”

“To lie to them. To tell them the surrogate was progressing perfectly.”

My blood ran cold.

“Then whose child did you give them?”

The doctor slowly opened a drawer.

He pulled out a faded manila folder.

“Frank found a young woman. Desperate. Homeless. She gave birth the same week the surrogate was supposed to.”

He handed me the file.

“Frank paid her two hundred thousand dollars to walk away.”

I opened the folder.

Inside was a birth certificate.

The mother’s name was listed as Jane Doe.

But clipped to the back was a photograph.

A polaroid of a young, terrified girl holding a newborn baby.

I looked at the girl’s face.

I gasped.

I knew that face.

I saw it every day in the mirror.

It was my older sister, Sarah.

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