Chapter 6 - The Receipt in Margaret’s Desk
Rachel lunged for Madison.
I stepped in front of her.
“Don’t.”
Madison hid behind Chloe.
Rachel’s voice shook.
“Give me that key.”
“No,” Madison whispered.
Margaret moved toward us.
“That belongs to me.”
“Then you can explain why Rachel had it.”
Margaret stopped.
I held out my hand.
Madison placed the silver key in my palm.
I closed my fingers around it.
Rachel’s face hardened.
“If you open that desk, you are stealing private financial information.”
“Then call whoever you want.”
The words surprised even me.
Ten minutes earlier, I had been thinking only about getting Sophie out.
Now I knew leaving immediately might mean losing whatever Rachel was desperate to destroy.
I looked at Sophie.
“Do you want to wait in the car?”
She shook her head violently.
“No.”
I crouched beside her.
“You will never be left alone with Grandma again.”
Her shoulders relaxed slightly.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
I asked Chloe and Madison to stay with Sophie in the living room.
Then I faced Margaret.
“Open the study.”
“No.”
I held up my phone.
“Then I photograph the guardianship papers and the locked door, and I leave with the key Madison found.”
Rachel whispered, “Mom.”
Margaret glared at her.
Then she unlocked the door.
The study smelled like paper, furniture polish, and the cedar blocks my father had always kept in the bottom drawers.
I did not let myself drift into memories.
I focused on the desk.
The silver key opened the right-hand drawer.
Inside were folders.
Tax documents.
Property statements.
Bank envelopes.
And a receipt.
GENESURE LABORATORIES.
I stared.
Rachel appeared behind me.
“That proves nothing.”
I picked it up.
There were two sample numbers.
GP-48117-A.
GP-48117-B.
My report showed different sample identifiers.
I pulled my copy from my handbag.
Rachel watched.
The numbers did not match.
“You had another DNA test done.”
Margaret said, “I wanted certainty.”
“Using whose samples?”
Silence.
The receipt listed relationship type:
Grandparentage analysis.
I felt Sophie’s presence in the doorway.
I turned.
She had followed us.
“Sweetheart, stay with Chloe.”
But Sophie was staring at Margaret.
“You took my toothbrush.”
Margaret’s face shifted.
“What?”
“My pink toothbrush disappeared.”
I looked at my mother.
“Did you test Sophie without telling me?”
Rachel interrupted.
“Mom had every right to know whether—”
“No, she didn’t.”
Sophie’s lip trembled.
“She said Madison threw it away.”
Madison shouted from the living room.
“I didn’t!”
I looked at the receipt again.
The test had been ordered three weeks earlier.
Long before the hospital-lineage review dated nine days ago.
So Rachel’s story was backward.
They had not discovered a questionable hospital record and then sought DNA confirmation.
They had ordered DNA first.
Then built the hospital story afterward.
I opened another folder.
Rachel grabbed my wrist.
“Stop.”
I looked at her hand.
“Let go.”
She did.
Inside the folder was a printout from a different company.
Not GeneSure.
LegacyLine Home DNA.
Across the front, in bold letters, was the sentence Margaret had apparently believed.
NO BIOLOGICAL GRANDPARENT RELATIONSHIP SUPPORTED.
I compared the names.
Margaret Parker.
Sophie Parker.
Then the sample collection section.
Neither sample had been witnessed.
Neither had been verified.
And beside Sophie’s sample number was a handwritten note.
Use C.P. swab.
I stared at the initials.
C.P.
Chloe Parker.
I looked toward the doorway.
Chloe was standing there.
Rachel went pale.
The negative test had not compared Margaret’s DNA to Sophie’s at all.
May you like
Someone had submitted Chloe’s sample under Sophie’s name.
📖 Find out who switched Chloe’s DNA sample with Sophie’s—and why Rachel needed a false negative result before the trust review in CHAPTER 7. 👇
