Chapter 7 - The Child They Buried on PaperNathan stared at Emily.
“Whose child?”
She did not answer.
The silence stretched.
Then Nathan’s expression changed.
Not suspicion.
Recognition.
“No.”
Emily looked away.
Nathan took one step backward.
“No.”
Claire looked between them.
“What?”
Nathan whispered a name.
“Daniel.”
Emily closed her eyes.
Nathan’s older brother.
Daniel Sterling.
The forgotten son in every newspaper profile of the family.
Robert and Victoria’s first child.
Nathan’s hero.
Daniel had been twenty-eight when his motorcycle went over a cliff in California fourteen years earlier.
Police found the motorcycle.
They found blood.
They never found Daniel.
Robert insisted there should be no prolonged search.
He told Nathan his brother was dead.
Two years later, Emily disappeared.
Pregnant.
Nathan sat slowly.
“Daniel was alive.”
Emily nodded.
“When?”
“For at least two years after the accident.”
Nathan laughed in disbelief.
“My entire family apparently treated death like a temporary travel arrangement.”
Emily almost smiled through tears.
“Daniel discovered your father was alive before Victoria did.”
Nathan looked up.
“How?”
“He had been investigating money missing from Sterling Maritime.”
“Why fake his death?”
“He didn’t.”
Nathan frowned.
“The crash was real.”
Emily explained.
Daniel had confronted someone inside Sterling Maritime.
Three days later, his motorcycle was forced off a mountain road.
A hiker found him before the men searching the wreckage did.
Daniel survived.
Broken ribs.
Fractured leg.
Severe head injury.
He woke in a small hospital under another name because the hiker had taken his wallet before paramedics arrived.
“Why didn’t he come home?”
Nathan asked.
“Because Samuel found him first.”
Nathan stared.
“Samuel again.”
“Daniel told Samuel someone tried to kill him. Samuel believed returning openly would put you and Victoria in danger.”
“So everybody knew except me.”
“No.”
Emily’s voice sharpened.
“Not everybody. A handful of terrified people trying to keep your family alive.”
Nathan stood.
“And Daniel contacted you.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Eight months after the crash.”
Emily remembered the first time she saw him again.
A motel outside Baltimore.
Daniel thinner.
A scar along his temple.
Walking with a cane.
He hugged her for almost a minute.
Then he asked only one question.
“How’s Nate?”
Emily had lied.
“Fine.”
Nathan had not been fine.
He had spent months blaming himself for the last argument he had with Daniel.
“I saw him four times,” Emily said.
Nathan’s eyes filled with betrayal.
“You saw my brother four times.”
“Yes.”
“And never told me.”
“He begged me not to.”
Nathan looked away.
Emily continued.
“Daniel was gathering evidence against Robert. He believed your father was laundering Sterling money through Price Capital.”
“Did my mother know?”
“Not until later.”
“And you and Daniel…”
Emily nodded.
“We loved each other.”
Nathan sat again.
It hurt.
Not because he was jealous.
Because another piece of his childhood had existed behind a locked door.
Daniel and Emily.
Two of the people he had loved most.
Keeping an entire life from him.
“We planned to leave together,” Emily said.
“When?”
“The week your mother died.”
Nathan’s head lifted.
Emily’s voice trembled.
“Daniel was supposed to meet me in Philadelphia two days later.”
“He didn’t.”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“I received a call from Samuel.”
She swallowed.
“Daniel was dead.”
Nathan went very still.
“How?”
“Samuel said he had been found in a rented apartment in Baltimore.”
“Cause?”
“Overdose.”
Nathan laughed sharply.
“My brother didn’t use drugs.”
“I know.”
“Did Samuel see the body?”
Emily hesitated.
“He said yes.”
Nathan stood.
“Then where is Daniel buried?”
Emily’s tears came.
“There is no grave.”
Nathan stared.
“Samuel arranged cremation.”
“No.”
“What?”
“No.”
Nathan walked toward her.
“You believe that?”
“I did.”
“You believed the same people who lied about my father’s death. My brother’s death. My mother’s records.”
“Nathan—”
“You never saw his body.”
“No.”
“You never saw ashes.”
“No.”
“And Robert just sent a message about the baby.”
Emily wiped her face.
“Yes.”
Nathan’s breathing changed.
“What happened to the child?”
Emily looked down.
“I gave birth to a boy.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
A nephew.
He had a nephew.
Or had.
“When?”
“Eleven years ago.”
“Name?”
“James.”
Nathan’s face crumpled slightly.
Daniel’s middle name.
Emily nodded.
“He had Daniel’s eyes.”
Nathan looked away.
“Where is he?”
Emily could barely speak.
“He died.”
Claire whispered, “Emily…”
“He was six weeks old.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Emily continued because if she stopped, she might never start again.
“I woke up one morning and he wasn’t breathing.”
Nathan covered his mouth.
“The doctors said sudden infant death.”
“Was there an autopsy?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have the report?”
“No.”
Nathan looked at her.
“Why?”
“It disappeared.”
Silence.
Emily explained.
The hospital released James’s body to a funeral home.
Samuel paid for everything anonymously.
Emily was terrified someone connected to Robert might discover the child had existed.
She agreed to a quiet cremation.
But when she asked for the medical file months later, the hospital claimed no infant named James Harper had ever been admitted.
Nathan’s eyes sharpened.
“Then what happened?”
“I thought Samuel erased the records to protect me.”
“Did he say that?”
“No.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me never to ask again.”
Nathan began pacing.
“No.”
Emily knew that look.
He was assembling facts.
“Robert knows about the baby.”
“Yes.”
“Samuel erased or hid the medical record.”
“Maybe.”
“You never saw a body after the hospital took him.”
Emily froze.
Nathan stopped.
“Emily.”
She shook her head immediately.
“No.”
“Did you?”
“They wouldn’t let me.”
“Why?”
“They said—”
“What?”
Her voice broke.
“They said because of the autopsy.”
Nathan stared.
Claire stood slowly.
“Oh my God.”
Emily backed away.
“No.”
Nathan’s voice was careful now.
“What funeral home?”
“Mercy & Sons.”
Claire was already searching.
Her expression changed.
“What?”
Nathan asked.
“It closed nine years ago.”
“Owner?”
Claire typed.
Then looked up.
“Subsidiary of Bell Family Holdings.”
Arthur Bell.
Emily grabbed the chair.
“No.”
Nathan came toward her.
She pushed him away.
“No. Don’t.”
“Emily.”
“My baby died.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
She was crying now.
“He died in my arms.”
Nathan stopped.
Emily pressed both hands against her chest.
“I held him. He was cold. He wasn’t breathing.”
Claire’s voice was gentle.
“You may be right.”
“I am right.”
Nathan nodded.
“Okay.”
But his eyes said he was not convinced.
Emily saw it.
“Don’t do this to me.”
“I’m not trying to.”
“You’re giving me hope.”
Nathan’s expression broke.
“I’m trying to find out why my father knows about a child nobody was supposed to know existed.”
That stopped her.
Marcus entered.
Nobody had called him back.
Nathan stared.
“I removed you.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because somebody tried to kill Arthur Bell.”
Claire swore.
“What happened?”
“His car exploded in a parking garage forty minutes ago.”
Emily covered her mouth.
“Is he dead?”
“No. He wasn’t inside.”
“Where is he?”
“Missing.”
Nathan stared at Marcus.
“And?”
Marcus held out a recovered phone.
“Bell left this with a bartender two hours before the explosion. Told him to give it to Nathan Sterling if anything happened.”
Nathan took it.
One video file.
He pressed play.
Arthur Bell appeared on-screen.
Sweating.
Terrified.
“If you’re watching this, Robert knows I’m talking.”
Emily moved closer.
Bell continued.
“I did terrible things for Preston and Robert. I helped move money. I changed records. I covered up Victoria Sterling’s final hours.”
Nathan’s jaw tightened.
“But I did not kill her.”
Bell looked directly into the camera.
“And Emily Harper’s baby did not die at my funeral home.”
Emily stopped breathing.
Nathan lowered the phone.
“No.”
Emily whispered.
“No.”
He pressed play again.
Bell continued.
“I was ordered to produce cremation records for an infant who had already been removed from the hospital.”
Emily collapsed into the chair.
Nathan crouched beside her.
The video continued.
“I never knew where the child went.”
Bell swallowed.
“But I know who signed the transfer authorization.”
The screen filled with a scanned document.
Nathan zoomed in.
One signature.
PRESTON PRICE.
Emily made a sound Nathan would remember for the rest of his life.
Not a cry.
Something deeper.
A mother hearing that the grave she had mourned for eleven years might never have contained her child.
Then the phone rang.
Unknown number.
Nathan answered.
A young male voice spoke.
“Is this Nathan Sterling?”
Nathan looked at Emily.
“Yes.”
The boy hesitated.
“My name is Jamie.”
Emily’s eyes lifted.
May you like
The voice continued.
“I think Emily Harper might be my mother.”
