Chapter 6 - The Interrogation RoomThe interrogation room was cold, smelling of stale coffee and industrial cleaning agents. Across the metal table sat Detective Miller, a seasoned cop who had seen it all. Beside him lay the weathered leather box Bernice had been clutching.
"Your mother isn't talking," Detective Miller said, sliding a thick manila folder across the table. "At least, not about the break-in. But she's talking about you, Christopher. Or rather, who she claims you really are."
I opened the folder. Inside were newspaper clippings from nearly three decades ago.“MILLIONAIRE HEIR DISAPPEARS AFTER TRAGIC BOAT ACCIDENT. INFANT SON PRESUMED DROWNED.”
My breath caught in my throat. I stared at the grainy photograph of a wealthy young couple smiling on the deck of a yacht. The father’s facial structure, the shape of the eyes—it was like looking into a mirror.
"You're not Bernice Hayes's adopted son through legal channels," Detective Miller explained quietly. "Bernice was a nanny for the Vance family twenty-eight years ago. When the parents died in that suspicious boating accident, the infant heir vanished along with the nanny. No body was ever found. The estate went into a frozen trust, waiting for the heir to claim it upon his twenty-eighth birthday—which happens to be this month."
The puzzle pieces snapped together with terrifying clarity.
Bernice hadn't raised me out of love. She had kidnapped me to steal my identity, drain the estate once I turned twenty-eight, and keep me under her thumb my entire life. And when Savannah got pregnant, Bernice realized a bloodline heir would complicate her grand theft—or worse, give me a real family that would pull me away from her control.
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"Where is she now?" I asked, my voice dangerously calm.
"In holding," Detective Miller replied. "But she left a parting gift for you. A letter. She said you need to read it before you go home to your wife."
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