Chapter 4 - THE SANTA BARBARA FILE
I had been adopted.
That was not secret.
Alexander and Vivian Blackwood adopted me when I was six weeks old.
I grew up knowing.
No shame.
No mystery obsession.
My biological records were sealed under California law at the time, and my parents told me my birth mother was a young woman unable to parent.
I never searched.
Why?
Because Alexander and Vivian were my parents.
Then I built Blackwood Systems.
Married Amelia.
Had Oliver through IVF after years of fertility treatment.
My identity had never felt incomplete.
Until Serena said Grace Carter may have been paid to hide a child.
Me.
I contacted my attorney.
Then an adoption-record specialist.
Not because Serena’s theory made it true.
We needed evidence.
The first finding:
I was born in Santa Barbara.
I knew that.
The second:
The agency involved had worked closely with West Coast Reproductive Center.
That was new.
The third:
Grace Carter had worked there as a junior administrative assistant.
Not surrogate coordinator exactly.
Serena’s investigator had exaggerated.
Grace handled patient scheduling and record transfer.
Twenty-seven years ago, she was twenty-five.
Lily was born the following year.
So Grace knew something about my adoption before becoming Lily’s mother.
Then we found the $25,000 payment.
It did not come directly from Amelia.
Amelia was a child then.
It came from Amelia’s father, Thomas Whitmore.
The estate record Serena found listed it under a family trust Amelia later inherited, which was why it appeared among her papers.
Payee:
Grace Carter.
Description:
Confidential consulting.
I stared at the date.
Six weeks after my adoption.
Thomas Whitmore had paid a fertility-clinic employee connected to my adoption.
Why?
Then a retired nurse returned our call.
She had worked at the clinic.
When I told her my birth date, she went silent.
“What?”
“There were two babies.”
My skin went cold.
“What does that mean?”
She asked for legal counsel before continuing.
Fair.
When she eventually gave a formal statement, she explained.
Two male infants were born within forty-eight hours under highly confidential arrangements.
One went to the Blackwoods.
The other disappeared from clinic-linked records after transfer.
One birth mother was named in surviving fragments.
Margaret Reed.
The other identity had been redacted.
What did Grace Carter know?
May you like
Apparently enough to receive money.
And Amelia’s father had somehow been involved.
