Chapter 7 - The Sister Taylor Erased
Taylor had one older sister.
Rachel.
I had heard the name only once.
Taylor said Rachel died in a car accident as a teenager.
She lied.
Rachel had been seventeen when Evelyn’s fertility clinic recruited her for a “paid medical study.”
She became pregnant through embryo implantation.
After giving birth, she was told the baby died.
Then Rachel disappeared.
Taylor claimed she believed her sister ran away.
But letters found in Evelyn’s safe proved Taylor knew more.
Rachel wrote to her repeatedly.
They won’t let me leave.
The baby is alive.
Please tell David.
The final line made no sense.
I had never met Rachel.
Or so I believed.
Then Taylor confessed.
Before I met her, I attended a summer program in Boulder.
I spent one night with a girl named Rae.
We were nineteen.
She left before morning.
Taylor introduced herself to me two years later and never mentioned the connection.
Rachel had been Rae.
Lily was conceived from an embryo created using my genetic sample without my knowledge and implanted into Rachel.
I was her biological father by design.
Evelyn had selected me.
My mother had planned my daughter’s birth before I ever met my wife.
“Why?” I asked Taylor.
“Your family trust.”
My grandfather’s estate passed only through a direct biological descendant.
I had refused to have children young.
Evelyn did not want to risk the fortune leaving her control.
So she created an heir.
Then placed the child in my home after Taylor’s pregnancy loss.
Taylor knew enough to suspect the truth.
She chose silence because she wanted Lily.
I sat across from her, unable to recognize the woman I married.
“Where is Rachel?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you ever look?”
Tears rolled down her face.
“My mother said Rachel was dangerous.”
“Your mother?”
Taylor nodded toward the hallway where Evelyn sat under police watch.
I realized the truth before she said it.
Evelyn was not only my mother.
She was Taylor’s too.
Taylor was my half-sister.
Our marriage had been engineered just like Lily’s birth.
The room tilted around me.
Then Detective Cole returned with another recovered recording.
Rachel’s voice came through.
“If David ever learns the truth, tell him I never abandoned our daughter.”
A man spoke behind her.
May you like
Leonard.
“He won’t learn anything once the freezer is ready.”
