“Us?”
Clara paused.
“My family helped build Hayes Technologies.”
Daniel leaned closer to the phone.
“State your full name.”
She laughed quietly.
“You know it is not Bennett.”
The line disconnected.
I stared at the screen.
Daniel opened the company’s earliest incorporation records while Lena contacted the security team.
My body felt suddenly heavier than before, as though the fall had only now reached me.
“Amelia,” Daniel said.
He turned the laptop around.
The original partnership agreement listed my father, Samuel Hayes, beside another name.
Dr. Evelyn Bennett.
Clara had not chosen her false surname carelessly.
“She was related to the cofounder,” I said.
“Possibly,” Daniel replied.
Lena’s phone chimed.
She read the message and frowned.
“What is it?”
“Security searched Richard’s study.”
“And?”
“They found a hidden safe.”
I expected financial records, forged documents, or evidence of another life.
Instead, the photograph showed a collection of letters tied with blue ribbon.
Every envelope was addressed to my father.
The handwriting belonged to my mother.
