The Maid Served Dinner—Then the DNA Test Named Her Heir

Chapter 09 - The Missing Page

Thomas traced the charred St. Agnes page to a retired county archivist named Harold Finch. He admitted that someone had paid him to remove a box of records before a scheduled digitization. He claimed he never learned the buyer’s name.

Elena did not believe him.

She and Thomas met Finch in a roadside diner two towns away. He kept glancing at the windows and stirring coffee he never drank.

“The file said a newborn girl was delivered to St. Agnes by a private ambulance,” he told them. “No mother present. A woman signed the transfer order.”

“Regina Vale?” Elena asked.

Finch swallowed. “That name appeared on the copy.”

“Where is the original?”

“Gone.”

Thomas leaned forward. “Mr. Finch, tampering with child welfare records is a felony.”

Finch’s hands tightened around the cup. “I did not destroy it. I sold the box to a man who worked security for Gregory Vale. He died last year.”

He slid a storage receipt across the table. Unit 417, North River Lockup.

The unit had been abandoned for twenty years but never auctioned because the fees were paid through a shell company. Thomas obtained a court order that evening.

Inside they found scorched ledgers, photographs, and a metal cashbox. One ledger contained payments to St. Agnes, a private clinic, and an institution called Lakeview Rest Center. The payments continued every month for twenty-six years.

Elena’s pulse raced. “Why would anyone keep paying after my mother died?”

Thomas turned to the latest entry. It was dated six weeks earlier.

Vivienne joined them by video call. When she heard the name Lakeview, she went silent.

“What is it?” Elena asked.

“An old rehabilitation facility in the Adirondacks,” Vivienne said. “Gregory recommended it after my husband’s stroke. I refused because the ownership was hidden.”

Thomas found a photograph beneath the ledger. It showed a thin woman sitting near a lake, her dark hair streaked with gray. The date stamped on the back was only three years old.

Around the woman’s neck hung an empty silver chain.

Elena pressed the photograph to her chest.

“That is her.”

“You cannot know that,” Thomas said gently.