Chapter 4
The private DNA report had been ordered by Dr. Lydia Crane.
That name hit Vincent harder than the result.
Lydia had been Serena’s college roommate.
A pediatric geneticist now.
For years, she had avoided the Corvinos.
Then, six weeks before the banquet, she contacted Marcella.
Not Vincent.
Marcella.
Why?
Because Lydia had received an anonymous package containing:
A baby hospital bracelet labeled only with a date.
A copy of Elsie’s adoption placement summary.
And a note:
Ask why Serena’s daughter has Vincent’s last name.
Lydia did not trust Vincent.
She remembered him as the brother Serena loved and feared.
Marcella presented herself as the safer family contact.
A mistake.
Lydia obtained a private kinship analysis using samples she lawfully held from prior family genetic screening and a sample Marcella claimed she could provide with Vincent’s consent.
There was no consent.
Marcella had taken Elsie’s hairbrush from the mansion nursery suite.
The report was not automatically admissible as final proof because of chain-of-custody issues.
But it was strong enough to prompt a formal court-ordered test.
Lydia told investigators:
“When I saw the result, I called Marcella. She said she would tell Vincent.”
“Did she?”
“No.”
“What did she do?”
“She asked whether the report could be destroyed.”
Lydia refused.
Then the envelope disappeared from her courier tracking.
Marcella’s assistant had signed for it.
The formal retest came three weeks later under court order.
Vincent consented.
Elsie’s court-appointed attorney consented on her behalf after reviewing the purpose.
Serena’s stored medical sample, preserved from an unrelated procedure years earlier, was used under probate authorization.
The result confirmed it.
Elsie was Serena Corvino’s biological daughter.
That did not automatically erase Vincent’s legal adoption.
But it transformed the case.
A child believed privately surrendered by unknown parents was actually the missing child of a missing woman.
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A missing woman who had been investigating Corvino money.
A missing woman whose sister-in-law had tried to burn the proof.
