Chapter 7 - The Morning Results
By seven o'clock the following morning, the front gates of the Vale brownstone on Beacon Hill were surrounded by a swarm of satellite news trucks and paparazzi. Microphones were shoved against the wrought-iron fence, and cameras with telescopic lenses were trained on every shuttered window.
Inside, the atmosphere was suffocatingly tense.
Eleanor sat at the long dining table, dressed in a sharp charcoal suit. Her eyes were red-rimmed from a sleepless night, but she sat with her back straight, radiating the icy resolve of a matriarch who had survived five decades of society wars.
Lucia sat beside me, happily dipping toast into a soft-boiled egg, oblivious to the storm raging outside the thick curtains. Adrian had personally asked the chef to prepare a plate of berries and French toast for her, and she had spent the last twenty minutes explaining to Eleanor the exact rules for hosting a tea party for stuffed rabbits.
Eleanor had listened to every single word as if it were the Gospel.
The heavy pocket doors slid open, and Adrian entered. He was followed by Dr. Vance, the chief geneticist from Mass General. Dr. Vance was a man in his late fifties, wearing a rumpled suit and holding a thick, sealed Manila envelope stamped with the hospital's official red wax seal.
Dr. Vance looked exhausted, his brow furrowed with extreme nervous tension.
"Dr. Vance," Adrian said, his voice flat. "Tell us."
Dr. Vance glanced nervously toward Eleanor, then took a deep breath. "Mr. Vale... I must be honest with you before I open this. Early this morning, around four a.m., I received a personal telephone call at my home from Senator Thomas Winthrop."
Adrian’s eyes narrowed into slits. "And what did the Senator want?"
"He reminded me that my medical research laboratory relies on a four-million-dollar state grant that his committee reviews next Tuesday," Dr. Vance said, his hands shaking slightly. "He suggested that it would be highly beneficial for my continued career if the results in this envelope showed no genetic link between Maya Bennett and the late Rosalind Vale."
Eleanor slammed her hand onto the table, rattling the fine china. "The utter audacity! That miserable, corrupt snake!"
"And what did you say to him, Doctor?" Adrian asked quietly.
Dr. Vance looked Adrian in the eye. "I told him that I took the Hippocratic Oath thirty-two years ago, and that I would rather lose my laboratory and work out of a trailer than falsify a genetic record for a politician."
Dr. Vance broke the wax seal, pulled out three crisp sheets of paper, and laid them on the table in front of Adrian and Eleanor.
"The laboratory completed a full sixty-four-marker chromosomal sequencing using Eleanor Vale's DNA, Adrian Vale's DNA, and Maya Bennett's DNA," Dr. Vance announced with absolute medical precision. "The statistical probability of Maya Bennett being the biological daughter of Rosalind Eleanor Vale is ninety-nine point nine-nine-eight percent. Genetically, Maya is Eleanor Vale's granddaughter, and Adrian Vale's first cousin. She is a full, direct lineal heir of the Vale estate."
Eleanor buried her face in her hands and let out a broken, beautiful cry of pure deliverance. Thirty years of doubt, thirty years of mourning a lost daughter, vanished into the crisp morning light.
Adrian looked down at the paper. A heavy, profound breath escaped his chest, as if an invisible boulder had been lifted from his shoulders.
He looked across the table at me.
"Welcome home, Maya," he said, his voice thick with emotion.
I couldn't hold back the tears any longer. They spilled down my cheeks, soaking into the collar of my sweater. I reached over and wrapped my arms around Lucia, pressing my face into her soft hair.
*We made it, Mom,* I thought, my heart crying out to the woman who had sacrificed everything in that tiny Dorchester walk-up. *They know who you were. Nobody can ever call you a thief again.*
"Adrian," Eleanor said, wiping her eyes and straightening her spine. Her voice suddenly became razor-sharp. "The Winthrops have spent the last twelve hours dragging our blood through the mud on every television network in this country. How do you intend to answer them?"
Adrian picked up his smartphone. He dialed a single number and put the call on speakerphone.
"Mark," Adrian commanded as soon as the line clicked open. "This is Adrian. Call a mandatory global press conference at Vale Global Headquarters for eleven o'clock sharp. Invite every major news network—CNN, BBC, the Times, the Globe, everyone. And Mark?"
"Yes, Mr. Adrian?" his head of public relations answered.
May you like
"Send a private courier with a formal invitation to Senator Thomas Winthrop and Celeste Winthrop," Adrian said, his eyes glittering like crushed ice. "Tell them their attendance is required if they wish to salvage what little remains of their lives."
***
