Chapter 10 - The Woman Outside the Hospital
Rebecca obtained security photographs from the hospital where Andrea delivered Leo.
One image showed Valerie standing near the maternity entrance on the night of Leo’s birth.
She was not employed there.
She had no recorded appointment.
Yet she remained inside the building for nearly four hours.
Another camera captured Marco meeting her near a service elevator.
Andrea stared at the photograph.
Marco had told her he spent those hours beside the neonatal unit waiting for news.
Instead, he had met Valerie in secret.
“Were they having an affair then?” Andrea asked.
“Possibly,” Rebecca said. “But this may involve more.”
Hospital access logs showed someone using a temporary contractor badge to enter the medical records office.
That badge was later reported missing.
Within two days of Leo’s birth, a copy of Andrea’s delivery file had been downloaded.
Valerie had begun collecting material for a false maternity claim five years earlier.
Andrea could barely breathe.
Had Marco married her because he loved her?
Or had the entire relationship been built around the Whitmore fortune?
Rebecca reviewed their timeline.
Andrea met Marco six years before Leo’s birth.
He worked for a financial advisory firm seeking Whitmore contracts.
Valerie worked at a fertility clinic connected to the same firm’s health-care portfolio.
Marco claimed he had never met Valerie until the previous year.
The hospital photograph proved that was false.
Detective Daniel traced Valerie’s previous addresses.
For seven years, she and Marco had received mail at the same apartment in Newark.
They had lived together before Marco met Andrea.
Andrea felt physically ill.
The affair was not new.
Valerie had not entered their marriage.
She had been waiting outside it.
Marco had built a relationship with Andrea while maintaining a secret life with Valerie.
But why wait five years to claim Leo?
The answer remained the trust.
Marco knew Andrea’s father planned to transfer company shares to his first grandchild.
He also knew the transfer occurred on the child’s fifth birthday.
Their conspiracy had always been scheduled for that date.
Rebecca closed the file.
“We should move you and Leo somewhere safe.”
Andrea agreed.
Before they could leave, Marco arrived home early.
Two private security guards accompanied him.
He held a temporary court petition claiming Andrea might attempt to flee with Leo.
The petition cited her “increasing paranoia” and “false accusations against household employees.”
Marco had turned her attempt to protect Leo into evidence against her.
“You’re not taking him anywhere,” he said.
Andrea looked at the guards.
Then at the husband who had planned this moment for years.
“Not tonight,” she answered.
May you like
But she had no intention of waiting helplessly.
👉 Marco used an emergency petition to trap Andrea inside the estate, unaware that Rosa still had access to a security system he believed he had disabled.
