Chapter 2
THE NAME ANA HID
Maria did not answer immediately.
That was enough to terrify Victor.
Outside the security room, Julian cried in Mrs. Bell’s arms. The sound cut through the silence.
Victor walked past everyone and took his son.
His son.
He held the baby against his chest and looked at Maria.
“Say it.”
Maria’s eyes filled.
“His name is Julian.”
“Then why did Ana say real name?”
“She did not mean first name.”
“What did she mean?”
Maria looked at Serena.
Serena had stopped crying.
Now she watched Maria with the cold focus of someone deciding whether one more secret could still be contained.
Maria saw it.
“So you know,” she said.
Serena laughed.
“I know you are a liar.”
Maria stepped toward her.
“You knew Ana found the records.”
“What records?” Victor demanded.
Maria looked at him.
“Your family trust is not only money.”
Victor stared.
“I know what a trust is.”
“No. You know the version the lawyers showed you.”
Conrad Hale, pinned beside the wall by security, said nothing.
Maria pointed at him.
“He knows.”
Victor looked at Conrad.
“Talk.”
Conrad smiled thinly.
“Not without counsel.”
“You are counsel.”
“Then I advise myself to remain silent.”
Victor’s anger sharpened.
He turned to the head of security.
“Call the police.”
Serena stepped forward.
“You cannot arrest me in my own house.”
Victor looked around.
The mansion had belonged to Blackwoods for six generations.
Then he looked at Julian.
“It is not your house.”
Serena’s face hardened.
Legally, Victor controlled the property after their father’s death.
Serena controlled parts of the family foundation and had spent years acting as if that made everything hers.
No longer.
Police arrived.
So did paramedics.
Julian was examined first.
Maria insisted.
The baby had not been hurt by the stroller incident.
But the emergency physician noticed something else.
“Has he been unusually sleepy?”
Victor frowned.
“He is two months old. He sleeps a lot.”
“More than usual?”
Maria answered before Victor.
“Yes.”
Victor looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“I feed him during the day.”
The doctor examined Julian more closely.
“Any vomiting?”
“Twice yesterday,” Maria said.
Victor felt cold.
Tests were ordered.
Serena and Conrad were separated.
Neither was allowed to leave.
Dr. Cross could not be reached.
His office said he had canceled all appointments and left town that morning.
That did not feel like coincidence.
While police reviewed the security footage, Victor took Maria into the library.
He closed the door.
“Everything.”
She nodded.
“No editing.”
“I understand.”
“No deciding what I can handle.”
Maria flinched.
Ana had done that.
Perhaps with reason.
Victor did not care right now.
Maria sat opposite him.
“My mother was Ana’s mother too.”
“Her name was Sofia.”
“Yes.”
“Ana told me Sofia abandoned her when she was eleven.”
“That is what Ana believed.”
“What happened?”
“Sofia left because Ana’s father threatened her.”
Victor frowned.
“Why?”
“She discovered he was working for the Blackwood Foundation.”
Victor stared.
“Ana’s father?”
“Gabriel Reyes. He was an accountant.”
Victor knew the name from old foundation reports.
Gabriel Reyes had died in a car accident fifteen years earlier.
“He found irregularities,” Maria said. “Adoptions. Medical grants. Private settlements.”
Victor’s chest tightened.
“What does that have to do with Julian?”
“Everything.”
Maria explained that the Blackwood family trust had an unusual succession clause written by Victor’s great-grandfather.
The first direct descendant of each generation became a continuity beneficiary. At six months old, that child triggered a transfer of voting control in several family holding companies to the child’s legal guardian.
Victor had always considered it archaic paperwork.
He had never thought it mattered.
Until Julian.
“Before Julian,” Maria said, “Serena remained interim voting trustee.”
Victor understood.
“At six months, I take control on his behalf.”
“Yes.”
“And Serena loses it.”
“Yes.”
“That is motive for killing a baby.”
Maria looked toward the door.
“It is motive for making sure the baby was never legally recognized as yours.”
Victor’s stomach dropped.
“What?”
“Ana found a DNA report.”
“No.”
“Victor—”
“No.”
Julian made a small sound against his chest.
Victor held him tighter.
Maria continued carefully.
“The report said Julian was not biologically yours.”
Victor stared.
“That is impossible.”
Ana had undergone fertility treatment after two miscarriages.
They used Victor’s sample.
He attended every appointment.
“Did Ana believe the report?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“She had already run another test.”
Maria opened her phone.
A laboratory report.
Paternity probability: 99.9998 percent.
Victor and Julian.
Confirmed.
He breathed again.
“Then the first report was fake.”
“Yes.”
“Who made it?”
“Dr. Cross ordered it.”
Victor closed his eyes.
“The real name?”
Maria hesitated.
“Ana discovered someone filed a second birth record.”
Victor stared.
“For my son?”
“Yes.”
“Under what name?”
“Julian Reyes.”
Ana’s surname before marriage.
“Why?”
“If Victor Blackwood was not listed as the legal father, Julian would not trigger the trust clause.”
“Who filed it?”
“Conrad.”
Victor stood.
His sister.
His doctor.
His attorney.
People who had attended his wedding.
People who stood beside Ana’s coffin.
“Did Ana confront them?”
“Not directly.”
“Why?”
“She wanted evidence.”
“She should have told me.”
Maria’s voice softened.
“She was afraid you would confront Serena before she could prove anything.”
“She was right.”
That made it worse.
Victor looked at Julian.
“What did Ana ask you to do?”
“Come here if she died.”
“As a maid.”
“Yes.”
“Why not tell me who you were?”
“Because the person who killed her might still be inside the house.”
Victor looked toward the door.
“Apparently three of them were.”
Maria nodded.
Then a detective entered.
“Mr. Blackwood.”
The detective held a tablet.
“We have preliminary toxicology on the baby.”
Victor stopped breathing.
“Julian?”
“Low level digoxin.”
Maria went pale.
Victor knew the medication.
Heart drug.
Dangerous in excess.
“How?”
“Could be accidental exposure. Could be dosing.”
Victor felt rage rise.
“Someone is poisoning my son.”
The detective did not contradict him.
Maria whispered, “Bottle bag.”
Victor turned.
“This morning Serena opened the stroller storage. Maybe the flash drive was not the only thing.”
Security footage showed Serena removing the flash drive, then reaching deeper into the storage compartment.
Her hand disappeared.
When it returned, she held a small dropper bottle.
She placed it inside Julian’s diaper bag.
Police found the bottle.
Unlabeled.
Field test detected digoxin.
Victor stared at Serena through the open doorway.
She was being interviewed.
She saw him.
For one moment, her face showed defeat.
Then she looked away.
Julian was transported to Texas Children’s for monitoring.
Victor rode with him.
Maria followed.
At the hospital, Victor sat beside the crib and watched machines track his son’s heartbeat.
He thought of Ana.
She had died in a bedroom less than fifty feet from him.
He had been downstairs on a business call.
Serena had told him Ana fainted.
Dr. Cross said her heart stopped unexpectedly.
Conrad advised against an autopsy because the cause appeared medically clear and Victor was too shattered to question it.
Now every detail looked criminal.
The detective returned near midnight.
“Dr. Cross was located.”
“Where?”
“Airport.”
“Leaving?”
“Cancun flight.”
“He is being detained.”
Victor exhaled.
“And Serena?”
“In custody.”
“For what?”
“Attempted injury to a child, evidence tampering, possible poisoning. More pending.”
Victor looked at Julian.
“Possible?”
“We build cases with proof.”
Victor hated the word.
He had spent his career admiring it.
Now proof felt slow.
Maria stood near the window.
The detective looked at her.
“We also need to ask Ms. Santos questions.”
Victor frowned.
“Why?”
The detective placed a photograph on the table.
Recovered from Conrad’s briefcase.
Maria entering Blackwood Mansion three months before Ana died.
Not six weeks ago.
Three months.
Victor looked at her.
“You were here before.”
Maria closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“You lied.”
“Yes.”
“What were you doing?”
“Ana let me in.”
“Why?”
“To install something.”
The detective slid another evidence bag onto the table.
A tiny wireless microphone.
Found behind a painting in Serena’s study.
Victor stared.
“You bugged my sister.”
Maria nodded.
Ana had suspected Serena’s financial fraud before she suspected murder.
They had recorded meetings.
Payments.
Threats.
Enough to prove Serena manipulated the trust.
“Where are the recordings?”
Maria looked at Victor.
“On Ana’s flash drive.”
The one Serena handed to Conrad.
Police had recovered it when Conrad was tackled.
The detective connected it to a secure laptop.
Most files were financial spreadsheets.
Then one audio recording.
Ana’s voice.
Serena’s.
Serena said, “You think having a baby makes you permanent here?”
Ana answered, “No. I think being Victor’s wife does.”
“You are temporary.”
“Then why are you afraid of me?”
Silence.
Ana continued.
“You changed the paternity file.”
Serena laughed.
“Can you prove it?”
“Yes.”
Then Conrad’s voice.
“You should have taken the settlement.”
Ana said, “For what?”
“To leave.”
“With my child?”
“Without him.”
Victor felt sick.
Ana’s voice became cold.
“You wanted me to abandon Julian so Serena could challenge Victor’s guardianship.”
Conrad replied, “It would have been cleaner.”
The recording ended.
Victor stared at the screen.
Maria said, “There is another folder.”
Password protected.
The hint:
JULIAN’S REAL NAME.
Victor looked at Maria.
“You still haven’t answered that.”
Maria whispered, “The name is not Reyes.”
“What is it?”
She looked at the baby.
Then at Victor.
“Ana discovered the fertility clinic had used the wrong embryo at first.”
Victor stopped breathing.
Maria continued.
“The embryo they implanted was not yours.”
He stared.
“But you said the DNA test—”
“Julian is yours.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“The first pregnancy.”
Victor went cold.
Ana’s first miscarriage.
Maria’s voice broke.
“She did not miscarry.”
Victor stood.
“What?”
“She gave birth at twenty-four weeks.”
“No.”
“She was told the baby died.”
“No.”
“Ana found out six months ago that the child survived.”
Victor could not breathe.
“Where?”
Maria looked at the password screen.
“That is what the folder contains.”
Victor stared.
He had another child.
Alive.
Somewhere.
And Serena knew enough to kill to keep the child hidden.
Julian slept after the toxicology test while Victor sat beside him counting each breath. The monitor gave numbers, but Victor watched the rise and fall of his son’s chest anyway. Machines could confirm life. Parents still needed to see it.
Maria remained at the door.
“Did Ana ever say she was afraid of me?” Victor asked.
“Not of you.”
“That pause says something.”
“She was afraid of what you would do if you knew.”
“That is fear of me.”
“Fear of your reaction.”
“Same difference to the person keeping the secret.”
Maria accepted that.
Victor looked down at Julian.
“I do not want him growing up thinking love means people can decide what truth he gets.”
Maria said softly, “Then start different.”
May you like
The sentence sounded simple.
Nothing about beginning differently was simple in Blackwood Mansion.
