Chapter 8 - THE DAUGHTER ERASED FROM HER MEMORY.
Hospital records showed Lena gave birth at nineteen after a car accident left her heavily medicated.
She remembered surgery, recovery, and being told the pregnancy had ended.
The Cole-affiliated hospital recorded a healthy baby girl.
The guardianship file listed the mother as unstable and financially dependent.
The infant was transferred through the foundation within forty-eight hours.
Lena’s father signed the release.
Margaret covered her mouth.
She had attended a foundation gala that same week celebrating “rescued newborns.”
Lena’s daughter may have been one of the babies displayed in donor photographs.
Celeste called the discovery irrelevant to Ethan’s case.
Victor’s voice became cold.
“A stolen child is never irrelevant. Only people who buy silence think time erases the crime.”
Nora searched the adoption ledger.
The baby had been renamed Olivia Grant.
Victor froze.
Grant was his surname.
His late wife had adopted a girl through the Cole Foundation eighteen years earlier.
Victor had believed the adoption was legal.
Olivia was now an Army cadet in Virginia.
Lena looked at him, unable to speak.
Victor had entered the elevator as her protector.
He may have unknowingly raised her stolen daughter.
Then his phone rang.
Olivia’s academy reported that a woman claiming to be her biological grandmother had removed her from campus.
The woman used Margaret’s identification.
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Margaret was standing in the lobby.
Someone else had been living under her name.
