Chapter 215

Caspian spread the duty roster open on the stone table, his finger landing on a single name. It appeared on the maternity ward night-shift rotation for June of that year. The scheduler's signature and the confirmation signature were written in the same hand — Zane Brooks.

The instant Zane saw that roster, every drop of color drained from his face.

He stood beside the stone table, a string of choked, incoherent sounds escaping his throat. He stepped back on instinct, his lower back striking the edge of the stone bench, his whole body stumbling.

He reached for the roster, but his fingers froze in midair — because Wesley's gaze was locked on him, boring straight through him.

Caspian drew out a photocopy of a marriage registration file from the city clerk's office.

The page numbers were out of sequence. One page had been torn out, the ragged edge still showing a strip of yellowed paper fiber.

The missing page happened to cover the marriage registration records archived from March through May of that year.

Next came the official records-transfer log. Less than two months after leaving the hospital, Zane had entered the Windsor Manor as its butler.

And his official records showed that Ondine had been registered under his brother and sister-in-law's names. Every piece of paperwork had been filed within the same narrow window of time.

"Twenty years ago, Zane held a support-staff position at Blackridge County General Hospital. He exploited his access to swap two newborns while the baby girl's records were still incomplete.

He sent the real Windsor daughter away and left another infant in her place, then erased every trace of the switch."

"For twenty years, he remained inside the Windsor Manor as its butler, monitoring this child's upbringing at close range, ensuring his scheme was never discovered."

Caspian's voice wasn't loud, but every word fell with perfect clarity into the ears of everyone in that courtyard. "Tamsin and Zane were already married when they both worked support staff at the hospital.

His wife gave birth to a daughter in Mill Creek Village. He took the newborn from the delivery room and swapped her with the Windsor family's child."

"His daughter stayed in the Windsor family and lived as their heiress for twenty years. The Windsors' own flesh and blood was cast out and left to suffer for twenty years." He paused. "Zane. Tell me which word I got wrong."

The courtyard plunged into absolute silence.

The splash of the fountain cut through the still dusk with startling clarity, water rushing over the pebbles at the bottom of the basin.

Sycamore leaves whispered in the evening breeze. A few curled down from the branches and landed on the pile of yellowed documents spread across the stone table.

Ondine lifted her head. Her swollen, red-rimmed eyes fixed directly on Zane.

Her lips parted. From her throat came a sound so faint, so hoarse, it was barely more than a murmur spoken in sleep. "Zane... is what he said true?"

Zane didn't answer.

His head stayed bowed, his shoulders trembling. In the fading light, his deeply lined face seemed to have aged a decade in seconds.

His hands gripped the hem of his uniform so tightly his knuckles turned white.

He wanted to say it was slander. He wanted to say the documents were forged. He wanted to say he had never once done anything to betray the Windsor family.

But he was staring at his own name on that duty roster — signed in his own hand twenty years ago — and his throat sealed shut. Not a single word would come.

Kieran stood beside the stone table. His gaze traveled from the duty roster to the records-office photocopy, then to Zane's frozen face, and finally to the girl behind him — the sister he'd been shielding all night.

His mind went blank. As if someone had placed a bomb against his temple, the fuse had burned down, and after the detonation there was nothing left but a high-pitched ringing.

Ondine watched his expression, and her heart felt like it had been hurled from a great height and shattered against the ground.

Her tears surged again. This time they were real. Inescapable terror.

She turned to Valencia. To Wesley. To the warm entrance of the Windsor Manor at the top of those steps. The people she'd called Mom and Dad for twenty years now stood before her, looking at her with an expression she had never seen before.

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Zane's face shifted rapidly in the dying light — from panic to ashen grey, from ashen grey to the cornered snarl of a man with nowhere left to run.

He jerked his head up, jabbed a finger at the yellowed documents on the stone table, his voice shrill and ragged, exploding through the quiet courtyard.

"Fabricated! All of it — fabricated! Mr. Caspian Windsor, you'd stoop to forging evidence just to throw Ms. Windsor out? I've worked at the Windsor Manor for twenty years — diligently, faithfully — and I have never done a single thing to wrong this family!

These files... this duty roster, the records-office copies — who's to say you didn't pay someone to fake them?"

His agitation spiraled. His chest heaved violently. Veins bulged at his temples. He looked like a cornered animal with its back against the wall.

He lunged forward, reaching for the stack of documents on the stone table. His fingers nearly grazed the curling edge of the yellowed roster.

Two security guards materialized from either side, seizing his arms and pinning him in place.

Zane thrashed against them, the muscles in his arms rigid as stone, still shouting, "You have no right to hold me! That evidence is all fake!" But the guards' fingers clamped around his elbows like iron vises. No matter how he twisted, he couldn't break free.

Caspian watched him. Not a flicker crossed his gaze.

He picked up a document from the stone table. Its cover bore the red official seal of a forensic analysis bureau. Inside was a handwriting comparison report.

He held the report in front of Zane's face. "This is a certified handwriting analysis. The signature on the June maternity ward duty log, the altered handwriting on the newborn information registry, and your routine signatures over twenty years at the Windsor Manor — they are identical.

Three samples were cross-referenced. The forensic conclusion: all written by the same individual." His voice didn't waver. "You say the documents are fabricated. Are you suggesting the forensic bureau is also conspiring with me to forge evidence?"

The words hit Zane like a physical blow. His whole body shuddered. He stared at the report — at the bright red seal and the crystal-clear comparison charts — his mind spinning through every possible angle of defense.

Every single one was a dead end.

He couldn't say the report was fake. That bureau's seal was recognized across all of Silverlight City. No one would dare forge it.

He couldn't say the signatures weren't his. He knew too well what he'd signed on those documents all those years ago. Every stroke, every curve was carved into the deepest reaches of his memory. Twenty years, and he had never forgotten.

Caspian gave him no time to breathe. He pulled another document from the box — the original archived copy of an official registration record.

The paper had yellowed and gone brittle, its edges curling inward. Affixed to it was Ondine's childhood registration form.

He spread it open on the stone table, his finger coming to rest on the 'head of household' field.

The name wasn't Wesley. It wasn't Valencia.

It was a name none of them recognized — Malcolm Brooks.