The Test That Failed
Chapter 05 - The Test That Failed
The second DNA test was performed at a university hospital with Detective Lena Park observing every step. Forty-eight hours later, the result confirmed a 99.98 percent probability that Edmund Bellmont was Clara’s maternal grandfather.
Edmund cried when Adrian read the report.
Clara did not.
The result gave her a blood connection, not a childhood. It could not return Margaret, explain Lillian’s disappearance, or repair the years Edmund had spent believing Marcus instead of searching beyond the story he was given.
Marcus called the test fabricated. The board of Bellmont House scheduled an emergency meeting to remove Edmund on grounds of diminished judgment.
Vivienne visited Clara before the meeting.
She arrived alone, without cameras, wearing a plain gray coat. “My father is frightened,” she said.
“He should be.”
“You don’t understand him. He built Bellmont House while Edmund lived in the past.”
“He built it with money he may have stolen.”
Vivienne’s jaw tightened. “Walk away. Edmund will give you a settlement. Keep your name, your studio, and your dignity.”
Clara laughed once. “You cut my dress in front of three hundred people. Now you are advising me about dignity?”
For the first time, Vivienne looked ashamed.
She admitted that Marcus had ordered her to provoke Clara at the gala. He knew about the hidden pouch because Margaret had contacted him shortly before her death. Margaret threatened to deliver the evidence to Edmund. Marcus assumed she had sewn everything into the old dress.
“Why didn’t he simply steal it?” Adrian asked from the doorway.
“He tried. Clara wore the dress before his people could search the apartment.”
Vivienne claimed she had not known what the pouch contained. She only knew her father wanted Clara embarrassed and removed before Edmund saw it.
“Then testify,” Clara said.
Vivienne shook her head. “If my father goes to prison, everything collapses. My mother’s medical care, our homes, the company—”
“The truth does not become less true because it is expensive.”
Vivienne left without agreeing.
Later that evening, the restored cassette arrived. Lillian’s voice filled Adrian’s office, soft and frightened.
She said Marcus had framed James for theft after James discovered missing pension funds. Lillian had copied the accounts and planned to take them to police. She feared Marcus would stage an accident.
The final words were almost lost beneath static:
If Clara survives, Margaret must take her to Rosebridge. My daughter will be safe where no Bellmont thinks to look.
Adrian searched the name.
May you like
Rosebridge was not a town.
It was a private neurological care facility two hours north—and one of its patients had been admitted twenty-four years earlier under the name Lily Avery.
