Chapter 4 - The Test Rachel Never Trusted
I wanted the answer immediately.
Nathan wouldn't give me one he couldn't verify.
“The surviving document is incomplete.”
“Was I tested?”
“We don't know.”
“Was Vanessa?”
“We don't know.”
That uncertainty nearly drove me insane.
The easiest story was obvious.
Sophie wasn't mine.
Vanessa knew.
Rachel discovered it.
But nothing fit.
Rachel had never been unfaithful as far as I knew.
Vanessa wasn't related to me.
And why would Vanessa care enough to terrorize a child over an old DNA test?
My attorney said what I needed to hear.
“Stop trying to solve the story before you have the facts.”
So we followed the paper.
The laboratory company had been acquired after Vanessa left.
Archived employment records still existed.
Vanessa had access to intake administration.
But she was not authorized to alter certified results.
Then we found an internal incident report.
A sample connected to Rachel’s family had been accessed outside normal workflow.
The employee account?
Vanessa Mercer.
She had claimed it was accidental.
No formal misconduct finding had followed.
But she resigned three weeks later.
I stared at the date.
Rachel confronted me about changing our locks four days after that incident.
At the time, she said she'd misplaced a key.
I laughed and told her she worried too much.
Now I wanted to go back in time and listen.
Then Emily called.
“Daniel, Sophie remembered something.”
I drove over.
Sophie was coloring at the kitchen table.
Emily had not interrogated her.
She had simply let her talk.
Sophie pointed at the family photograph she'd been drawing.
“Mommy said blue box.”
“What blue box?”
She led me upstairs to the bag containing items I'd brought from home.
Inside was Rachel’s stuffed lamb.
There was a zipper beneath its fabric lining.
Inside that compartment was a tiny brass key.
No blue box.
But I knew one place Rachel had rented before she died.
A safe-deposit box.
I contacted the bank.
Rachel’s box had been closed after her death.
Its contents had been transferred according to estate procedures.
I had received them.
Or thought I had.
The inventory listed one item I couldn't remember ever seeing.
**Blue metal case — sealed.**
And according to the receipt, someone had signed for it.
May you like
The signature looked like mine.
It wasn't.
