CHAPTER 8 — The DNA That Changed Everything Again
Ava refused to trust emotions.
She trusted evidence.
Within forty-eight hours...
Another DNA test was ordered.
Margaret waited nervously.
Emily prayed.
Sophia cried every night.
The results arrived.
The investigator opened the envelope.
He smiled gently.
"Margaret Ellis..."
"...is not Sophia's biological mother."
Margaret collapsed into her chair.
"No..."
"That's impossible..."
Ava looked closer at the report.
Then noticed something strange.
Margaret shared twenty-five percent DNA with Sophia.
Not fifty.
Richard frowned.
"What does that mean?"
The geneticist answered quietly.
"It means..."
"She's Sophia's aunt."
The room fell silent.
Margaret burst into tears.
"My sister..."
"My younger sister, Caroline..."
The name struck Emily like lightning.
Caroline Bennett.
Olivia Bennett's younger cousin.
The woman who had disappeared overseas shortly after giving birth.
Margaret whispered,
"Caroline begged me to protect her baby."
"She feared Victor Langston because he had threatened to expose her secret relationship."
"But before I could help..."
"The hospital told us the baby had died."
Sophia felt dizzy.
"So..."
"My mother..."
Margaret nodded through tears.
"Never stopped looking for you."
Emily grabbed Ava's arm.
"If Caroline is alive..."
"Where is she?"
A silence settled over the room.
Margaret answered with trembling lips.
"She disappeared twenty-seven years ago."
"No one has seen her since."
Ava's detective instincts returned instantly.
Victor Langston had gone to prison.
May you like
But someone else...
Had cleaned up the loose ends.
