CHAPTER 3 — THE CONTRACT
By sunrise, I was sitting in the library with our family attorney, David Hale.
David had served the Sterling family for thirty-one years. He had handled my parents’ estate, my marriage to Sarah and the trust created for Maya.
When I placed the fertility documents in front of him, his hands began to shake.
“You knew,” I said.
He removed his glasses.
“I knew there was a surrogate.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
David stared at the page carrying my father’s signature.
“I did not know Charles replaced the embryo.”
“Did Sarah know?”
“Not at first.”
The answer struck harder than I expected.
“At first?”
David walked to the window.
“Six months after Maya was born, Sarah became suspicious. The clinic refused to release the complete file. She asked me to investigate.”
“And you told me nothing.”
“She begged me not to.”
“Why?”
“Because she believed your father was watching her.”
I laughed once, without humor.
“My father watched everyone.”
David turned back.
“Sarah was afraid Charles would take Maya.”
“He had no parental rights.”
“He controlled the Sterling Trust.”
The trust owned forty-two percent of Sterling Global. It also contained a clause written before I was born: if an heir was deemed medically or psychologically unfit, temporary family control passed to the child’s other biological parent.
At the time, the clause had seemed irrelevant.
Now it explained everything.
Eleanor was not simply trying to send Maya away.
She was trying to establish herself as Maya’s biological mother while having me declared unfit.
If she succeeded, she would control Maya’s trust shares.
And through them, Sterling Global.
“Who drafted that clause?” I asked.
David hesitated.
“My father?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“Your grandmother, Beatrice Sterling.”
Beatrice was eighty-seven and still mentally sharper than most of the board. She rarely appeared in public, but no major family decision happened without her knowledge.
“Did she know about Eleanor?”
“I don’t know.”
“That answer is becoming very popular.”
David opened his briefcase and removed a sealed envelope.
Sarah’s handwriting was on the front.
FOR RICHARD—ONLY IF CHARLES BREAKS HIS PROMISE.
My throat tightened.
“How long have you had this?”
“Nine years.”
I stared at him.
“You kept a letter from my dead wife for nine years?”
“I was instructed to release it only if Charles attempted to use Maya’s biological parentage against you.”
“He just did.”
David pushed the envelope toward me.
Inside was a four-page letter.
Sarah explained that she had discovered the embryo substitution when Maya was six months old. She had confronted Charles.
He admitted everything.
He told her the Sterling family required a biological heir and that her failed embryo had created an unacceptable risk.
Sarah wrote that she wanted to tell me.
But Charles threatened to expose private financial records that would destroy Sterling Global and send thousands of employees into unemployment.
He also threatened to seek custody of Maya.
Near the end, Sarah wrote:
Eleanor did not act alone. She was recruited, paid and promised something Charles never intended to give her.
I read the next line twice.
Richard, the woman you know as Eleanor is not a stranger. She is my father’s other daughter.
Sarah and Eleanor were half sisters.
I looked at David.
“Why would Sarah’s own sister do this?”
David’s face tightened.
“Because Charles promised Eleanor that one day Maya would be returned to her.”
Then my phone rang.
It was Detective Morales.
“We searched Gavin Mercer’s apartment,” she said.
“What did you find?”
“A birth certificate.”
I waited.
Morales continued.
“It lists Charles Sterling as Gavin’s father.”
May you like
Gavin was not only Eleanor’s lover.
He was my half brother.
