Chapter 18 - The Brother No One Mentioned
Daniel could hear the furnace running.
Nothing else.
“You had another son?”
Laura nodded.
“A twin.”
Emma whispered, “Dad has a twin brother?”
Daniel looked at his mother. “Where is he?”
Laura’s face crumpled.
“He died three days after you were born.”
Daniel exhaled, but she wasn’t finished.
“At least that’s what I was told.”
Robert’s sealed statement explained the rest.
Mercer-Hale had faced bankruptcy the year Daniel was born. Samuel arranged an illegal adoption through a private attorney for a wealthy couple who could not have children.
Robert agreed to it before Laura woke from complications after delivery.
He told her Michael died.
Years later, Laura discovered the adoption while investigating company accounts.
“That was why I started digging,” she said. “I found a payment made the week you were born.”
Daniel’s hands shook.
“Did Dad know where Michael went?”
“Eventually.”
“Who?”
Laura looked toward Martin.
Martin had gone white.
Daniel turned.
“No.”
Martin sat down slowly.
“My sister and her husband adopted a newborn through Samuel in 1991.”
Daniel felt the room tilt.
“What was his name?”
Martin whispered, “Nathan Hale.”
Daniel knew Nathan.
Everyone did.
He was Martin’s nephew, a forty-five-year-old emergency-room physician in Milwaukee who had attended Robert’s funeral.
Daniel remembered shaking his hand beside the casket.
Nathan had stared at him too long.
Emma pulled out her phone.
“Dad.”
She was looking at a news article.
DR. NATHAN HALE PLACED ON ADMINISTRATIVE LEAVE AFTER PATIENT-RECORD BREACH.
The article had been posted an hour earlier.
Below it was a photograph of Nathan leaving the hospital.
A man walked several steps behind him.
Samuel Price’s son, Eric.
Laura stood.
“Samuel wasn’t protecting only the fraud.”
May you like
Daniel grabbed his coat.
“He was protecting the sale of my brother.”
