Chapter 5 - The Truth in the Drawer
I sat down hard on the leather office chair, clutching the yellowed hospital folder against my chest as the room spun around me.
The front door clicked open, and Detective Vance walked into the office, holding a stack of printed financial statements she had pulled from Nathan’s desk printer.
"Mrs. Ellis? Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost," Detective Vance said, stepping forward.
I held up the manila folder, my hands shaking so violently I could barely keep the papers stable. "Detective... read this. Please. Tell me I'm losing my mind."
Detective Vance took the folder, scanning the adoption documents, the birth certificate, and the signed affidavits. Her professional demeanor faltered, her eyebrows drawing together in confusion.
"This... this states Nathan's biological mother was your younger sister, Clara, who passed away in a car accident when he was two," Detective Vance read aloud. "And that you and your husband legally adopted him afterward to keep him in the family."
"It's a lie," I whispered, tears streaming down my face. "Clara didn't die in a car accident when he was two. Clara gave him up to us when he was a newborn because she was young and terrified. Robert and I promised her we would raise him as our own son to protect her reputation in our small town. But... but how did Nathan find out?"
Detective Vance walked over to Nathan’s desk, picked up the laptop that the crime scene techs had left behind on the counter, and tapped the spacebar. The screen lit up, displaying an open internet browser tab.
It wasn't a financial loan portal.
It was an online DNA ancestry database account, registered under a pseudonym, with a matching profile linking Nathan Ellis directly to Clara Vance’s surviving medical records and distant cousins.
"He found out through a commercial DNA kit," Detective Vance said quietly. "He must have swabbed his cheek a few months ago out of curiosity. He discovered you weren't his biological mother—you were his aunt. And Robert wasn't his father—he was his uncle."
"And the insurance policy?" I choked out, a cold wave of horror washing over me. "Is that why he wanted me dead? Because he found out I wasn't his real mother?"
Detective Vance looked down at the financial printouts in her hand, her expression grim. "No, Mrs. Ellis. It’s worse than that. According to these bank statements, Nathan didn't just borrow money from loan sharks for his business. Six months ago, he discovered that under the original family trust set up by your father—which you inherited and managed—he was designated as your primary heir only if you died of natural or accidental causes. If you revoked his inheritance while alive, the entire estate reverted to a public children's charity."
The puzzle pieces snapped together with brutal, sickening clarity.
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He didn't just want the insurance money. He wanted the entire family estate before I could rewrite my will to cut him out. And he believed that because I was "just an aunt" who had raised him out of obligation rather than blood, I wouldn't be worth grieving.
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