Chapter 9
Rachel placed the sealed laboratory report on the conference table.
Marissa and her attorney joined by video.
Gavin sat beside Brenna but not close enough to touch her.
Rachel opened the report.
The independent test excluded Gavin as Owen’s biological father.
Nobody celebrated.
Marissa covered her mouth.
Gavin stared at the paper.
Brenna watched him carefully.
He had known Owen only briefly.
That did not mean nothing had formed.
Hope.
Fear.
Responsibility.
Something.
Marissa began crying.
“I knew Daniel was his father.”
Her attorney touched her shoulder.
Rachel asked gently:
“Then why did Sybil convince you otherwise?”
Marissa wiped her face.
“Because she knew dates I had forgotten.”
Everyone looked at her.
“She showed me an old calendar.”
“What calendar?”
“Mine.”
Brenna leaned forward.
“How did Sybil have your calendar?”
Marissa looked confused.
“She said Gavin kept it.”
Gavin immediately shook his head.
“I’ve never seen your calendar.”
Marissa went pale.
The old calendar contained notes from the period when she dated Gavin.
Sybil had used it to persuade her that conception dates overlapped more closely than she remembered.
But neither Marissa nor Gavin had given Sybil that calendar.
Rachel asked whether Marissa still had old storage boxes from that period.
Marissa shook her head.
“Most things were stored at my mother’s house.”
“Could Sybil have known your mother?”
“No.”
Then Marissa remembered something.
Her mother had hired an estate-sale company after downsizing two years earlier.
Boxes of old belongings had been sold or donated.
Rachel’s investigator later traced the company.
One buyer purchased a mixed lot of personal papers and photographs from the Cole estate.
The buyer used a purchasing agent.
The agent’s client was Sybil Ashford.
She had been gathering Marissa’s history long before approaching her.
That evening Gavin asked Brenna:
“Why would she spend two years doing this?”
Brenna looked at the newest timeline.
That was the final question.
The paternity lie was proven.
The reason for building it still was not.
Then Rachel found a date that changed the direction of the entire case.
Sybil bought the old Cole papers four days after Brenna told her she and Gavin planned to move Tobin out of the Ashford estate before he started preschool.
May you like
The scheme had not begun with Owen.
It had begun with the threat of Sybil losing Gavin and Tobin.
