I knelt down.
“What’s your name?”
She whispered,
“Lily.”
I smiled through tears.
“Lily.”
She touched the glass door.
“Are you really my mommy?”
My heart shattered.
“Yes.”
The word barely came out.
“Yes, sweetheart. I am.”
The woman behind her started crying.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered.
“I swear I didn’t know.”
“Tell me everything.”
She wiped her face.
“Tessa came to me six years ago. She said the baby’s mother was unstable. She said the baby had been abandoned at birth.”
She shook her head.
“I believed her.”
“What did Tessa give you?”
The woman hesitated.
“A birth certificate.”
My investigator immediately stepped forward.
“Do you still have it?”
She nodded.
“Upstairs.”
Ten minutes later, we were staring at a document that had been altered.
The mother’s name was wrong.
The hospital number didn’t match.
And the signature at the bottom wasn’t from the attending physician.
My investigator looked at me.
“This is forged.”
Then he turned pale.
