Chapter 8 - THE CLINIC’S MISSING LOG
Queen City Fertility retained outside counsel within forty-eight hours.
That told me they were scared.
Not necessarily guilty.
But scared.
My records arrived first.
Forty-three pages.
Consent forms.
Medication logs.
Ultrasound measurements.
Donor profile.
Chain-of-custody records.
I read every line.
On insemination day, two vials had been thawed.
Both labeled donor 4187.
Lot A.
Lot B.
No indication they came from different biological sources.
The embryology technician had signed both.
A supervisor had countersigned.
Routine.
Until Claire’s reproductive-law specialist found one discrepancy.
The accession numbers differed.
Lot A traced to the Mercer transfer associated with Julian.
Lot B traced to a second Mercer transfer with the Blackwood billing contact.
My hands shook.
“What does that mean?”
“It means the clinic appears to have combined two accession sources under one donor profile.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know.”
“Could Chloe have done it?”
“She did not have lab authority according to the records we’ve seen.”
“So who did?”
The attorney shook her head.
“We need the transfer log.”
Queen City said the original log was missing.
Not destroyed.
Missing.
Their electronic system contained a scanned summary but not the intake sheet documenting how Mercer’s two shipments were mapped into donor inventory.
That was the document we needed most.
I laughed bitterly.
“Of course it’s missing.”
Claire corrected me.
“Missing documents happen. Now we find out whether there’s a mundane explanation or not.”
The clinic produced emails.
One came from Adrian Mercer to Queen City’s former laboratory director.
Subject:
Legacy inventory consolidation.
Mercer wrote:
Use 4187 for both Carter-compatible lots. Keep donor-facing profile unchanged.
I stared.
“Carter-compatible?”
No one knew.
The lab director replied:
Need written consent from source patients.
Mercer:
Already obtained. Originals retained in Mercer archive.
No originals had surfaced.
Another email three days later:
Proceed.
That suggested the lab director approved consolidation.
But why?
The former director, Dr. Susan Hale, was retired in Arizona.
Through counsel, she agreed to a recorded interview.
She remembered Mercer.
“He was closing his private storage operation.”
“Did you knowingly combine specimens from two men under one donor number?”
Long silence.
“I don’t remember approving that.”
We showed her the email.
She looked disturbed.
“That is my email address.”
“Is it your writing style?”
“Yes.”
“Could someone else access it?”
“At the time, possibly.”
“Why would Mercer call them Carter-compatible?”
She frowned.
“I have no idea.”
Then she asked to see my donor profile.
Brown hair.
Blue eyes.
Six-one.
Blood type O positive.
Dr. Hale stared.
“This profile wasn’t created by Queen City.”
“What?”
“It came with the transfer.”
“From Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“So Mercer created donor 4187.”
“Apparently.”
I felt cold.
“Why would he create an anonymous donor profile using stored specimens from identified men?”
She did not answer.
Because there was no innocent explanation yet.
Then Claire asked about the word Carter.
Dr. Hale looked at me.
“Was Carter your married name then?”
“No. My maiden name.”
Julian had never used it.
I had returned to Carter after the divorce.
At the time the transfer happened, I was Emma Brooks.
Mercer had called the lots Carter-compatible before I ever became his donor recipient.
That meant the donor profile may have been built with me in mind.
Years before my insemination.
I stared at the email date.
Three years ago.
While Julian and I were still married.
Before I filed for divorce.
May you like
Before I met anyone at Queen City.
Someone had been planning around my fertility long before I knew donor 4187 existed.
