Chapter 3 - Adrian Shows Emily Natalie’s Photograph
At Adrian’s townhouse, he showed Emily the photographs he had of Natalie Reed.
The woman was not Hannah.
She was older, with dark hair and a narrow face.
Adrian said he met Natalie at a private charity event nearly two years earlier.
They dated briefly.
Then she disappeared.
Months later, an attorney contacted him.
Natalie had supposedly given birth to his son and was seriously ill.
Adrian took a court-supervised paternity test.
It confirmed he was Lucas’s biological father.
Before Adrian could meet Natalie again, he was told she had died from complications following an infection.
Lucas was placed with him.
Emily looked through the documents.
Birth certificate.
Paternity report.
Guardianship order.
Hospital discharge papers.
Everything looked official.
But the birth certificate listed Lucas’s hospital.
St. Matthew Women’s Center.
Emily knew the name.
She had called St. Matthew while searching for Hannah.
They told her no patient named Hannah Carter had delivered there.
Adrian’s attorney, Rachel Moore, contacted the hospital.
The current administrator found Lucas Reed’s record.
Then she found something strange.
The mother’s identification number belonged to Natalie Reed.
But the prenatal bloodwork attached to the file belonged to another patient.
Hannah Carter.
Emily sat down.
Hannah had been at St. Matthew.
The hospital had denied it.
Why?
The administrator checked archived privacy restrictions.
Hannah’s file had been placed under a protected alias.
Natalie Reed.
Adrian looked at Emily.
“Are you saying Hannah used that name?”
Emily shook her head.
“Hannah hated lying about who she was.”
Then Rachel found another anomaly.
Natalie Reed was a real person.
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She had worked at St. Matthew.
As a patient-records coordinator.
