He threw away the true heiress

Chapter 4

The city subway train rattled over the old iron tracks, shaking the metal handrails and filling the car with a loud mechanical screech. I stood near the center doors, holding the vertical pole with my right hand while my left arm pressed my coat pocket against my hip.

Around me, commuters stared at their screens or slept with their chins tucked into their scarves.

The train lunged forward as it entered the underwater tunnel crossing the river. A sudden wave of dizziness hit the back of my neck. My stomach twisted, hot and sour, reminding me that I had eaten nothing since the small cup of ginger tea at eight o’clock. I closed my eyes, leaned my forehead against the cool metal pole, and breathed in through my nose until the nausea receded.

My phone remained silent in my pocket. I did not pull it out. I did not want to look at the screen and see another text from William. My mind was already spinning with too many questions that had no logical answers. Who the hell was William? What did he mean when he wrote that my mother did not die by accident?

My mother had been a quiet, hardworking private nurse who spent twenty years caring for elderly patients in their homes. She died of heart failure during my second year of college. That was what the hospital doctors told me. That was what the death certificate stated in clear black ink. Old Mr. Sterling had paid for her small funeral service because she had nursed him through his first stroke. He was the one who offered me a roof and a marriage contract with Garry when the hospital bills threatened to bury me.

Now a stranger was telling me there was a sealed registry and a buried name. I could not afford to chase ghosts today. I needed a locked door and a warm bed.

The train slowed and the automated speaker announced the station for Elm Street. I picked up my suitcase and stepped out onto the concrete platform. The air down here smelled of damp gravel and old oil. I climbed the two flights of tiled stairs to the street level and emerged into a quiet neighborhood of brick apartment buildings, small laundromats, and corner bakeries.

I walked four blocks until I reached a five story brick building with a faded green door and a row of metal buzzers beside the entrance. A small white card taped above the bottom button read MARTA BUILDING MANAGEMENT.

I pressed the button and waited. A minute later, the green door clicked and swung open.

An older woman with short gray hair and thick reading glasses stood in the hallway. She wore a thick wool cardigan over a floral print dress, and she held a ring of brass keys in her hand. Her dark eyes scanned my face, then dropped to my canvas suitcase.

"You must be Carleen," Marta said. Her voice was gruff but not unkind. "You are early. The lease agreement said you would not be moving in until Friday morning."

"I know, Marta," I said, keeping my voice polite and quiet. "My living situation changed unexpectedly this morning. I can pay the prorated amount for the extra three days in cash right now if the room is ready."

Marta looked at me for a long moment. She had managed this building for thirty years, and I could tell she had seen dozens of women arrive with single suitcases and tired eyes.

"Keep your cash," Marta said, stepping back so I could enter the warm hallway. "The floor was mopped yesterday afternoon and the radiator is working. That is all you need to know. Come with me."

I followed her down a narrow corridor covered in faded yellow wallpaper. The building smelled of floor wax, roasted onions from someone’s kitchen, and old laundry soap. It was a million miles away from the silent, perfumed halls of Garry’s penthouse, and for the first time all morning, my shoulders relaxed.

Marta stopped in front of Room Four at the end of the hall. She selected a brass key from her ring, unlocked the deadbolt, and pushed the door open.

The studio apartment was small. A single window looked out over a narrow alleyway and the brick wall of the building next door. A double bed with a plain wooden frame sat in the corner, covered with a clean white sheet. A small laminate table with two chairs stood near a kitchenette that contained a two burner stove, a mini refrigerator, and a small copper sink. Everything was old, but the linoleum floor was scrubbed clean and the room was warm.

"The water takes about two minutes to get hot in the shower," Marta said, handing me two brass keys on a plain wire loop. "Trash goes in the metal bins behind the stairwell. No loud music after ten o’clock at night. And if you need an extra blanket, my door is at the front of the hall."

"Thank you, Marta," I said, taking the keys. "This is perfect."

Marta lingered in the doorway for a second, her sharp eyes studying the pale circles under my eyes. "You look like you have not slept in three days, child. Lock your door and get some rest. The neighborhood is quiet during the day."

She pulled the door closed behind her, leaving me alone in the small room.

I sat on the edge of the mattress. The springs creaked softly under my weight. I needed to check my work schedule. I worked as a freelance technical translator for a small educational publisher, translating German and French medical journals into English. The pay was modest, but it was reliable, and it was the only money I had that Garry’s lawyers could never touch.

I opened my suitcase, pulled out my small laptop computer, and set it on the laminate table. I plugged the power cord into the wall socket and connected to the public wireless network Marta provided for the building.

When my email inbox loaded on the screen, there were twelve new messages. Eleven of them were standard publishing newsletters and automated system alerts.

The twelfth message was from an unknown sender with no subject line.

My hand froze on the computer mouse. I looked at the time stamp. It had arrived twenty minutes ago, while I was sitting on the subway train.

I clicked the message to open it.

There was no greeting. There was only a single sentence typed in the body of the email.

The St Jude registry was closed by court order in the year of your birth, but your mother kept a physical carbon copy of the intake form.

Attached to the bottom of the email was a scanned image file titled REGISTRY-1999.

My heart began to beat with a slow, thrum against my ribs. Who was William? Why was he sending me documents from the year I was born? Why now, on the exact morning I had walked out of Garry’s house forever?

I clicked the attachment icon.

The image opened across my screen. It was a grainy black and white scan of an old hospital admission sheet from St Jude Maternity Hospital. The top corner of the page bore a faded blue admission stamp dated October fourteenth, nineteen ninety nine.

My birth date.

I leaned forward, my face inches from the screen, scanning the boxes filled out in old typewriter ink.

Under the section marked INFANT, my first name was typed clearly: Carleen. The last name box was blank.

Under the section marked MOTHER, my mother’s name was listed: Sarah Mercer. Her occupation was listed as Private Surgical Nurse.

My eyes moved down the page to the section marked EMERGENCY CONTACT AND NEXT OF KIN.

My breath stopped completely.

The box was not blank. There was a name typed in crisp, dark letters, followed by a formal residential address in the old embassy district of the city.

The name typed in the box was William Sterling.

I stared at the screen until the letters blurred together. William Sterling. That was the name of Garry’s late grandfather. That was the man my mother had cared for during the last ten years of her life. That was the man who had ordered Garry to marry me before he died.

Why was William Sterling listed as my mother’s next of kin on my birth registry twenty six years ago, long before she ever worked for him as a private nurse?

My phone buzzed on the laminate table right next to my hand.

I jumped, my heart pounding in my throat. I looked down at the glowing screen.

It was another text message from the unknown number.

"You opened the file. Now look at the signature at the bottom of the page. That is not your mother's handwriting, Carleen. Someone else signed you out of that hospital."

I looked back at the computer screen and scrolled to the very bottom of the scanned admission sheet.

In the box marked PATIENT RELEASE AUTHORIZATION, there was a signature written in sharp, aggressive black ink. It was not my mother’s small, neat cursive. It was a bold, sweeping signature with a sharp loop on the final letter.

It was the exact same signature Garry’s grandfather used on all of his corporate contracts.