Meanwhile, Connor grew louder. He sent photographs of a blue nursery, and Betsy mailed Brinley a silver bracelet engraved SECOND PLACE. Alyssa gave an interview describing herself as the woman who would continue the Crest legacy.
I placed the bracelet in an evidence bag. Then Lucas Chapman called my office. He had dated Alyssa until three weeks before she announced her pregnancy.
“She told me the baby was mine,” Lucas said. “Then Connor offered her a better life.”
“Can you prove it?” I asked.
Lucas sent a prenatal paternity report. Alyssa had requested the test privately after Connor proposed. The result showed a greater than 99.9 percent probability that Lucas was the father.
Attached was a voice message. Alyssa laughed through the recording. “Connor is desperate for a boy. Once we marry, Betsy will make sure I control the family money. He never needs to know whose child it is.”
The wrong person had not merely been betrayed. The wrong person had been invited into their fraud.
I had the report authenticated. Through a sealed civil filing, Parker subpoenaed the clinic records confirming the sample chain and Alyssa’s signature. Connor’s vasectomy records made his claim absurd, though he had convinced himself the procedure had failed.