Chapter 12 - MY MOTHER’S CHOICE
My mother met me at the hospital before I went anywhere near Helen.
She looked twenty years older than she had the month before.
At first, she denied everything.
Then I placed the original missing-person report in front of her.
Our father had filed it.
She had asked him to withdraw it.
Helen threatened to kill me if the investigation continued.
My mother chose silence to keep me alive.
But silence became cooperation.
She accepted money.
She repeated the story that I had suffered a breakdown.
She watched me marry Luke years later and said nothing.
“I thought they would leave you alone if you didn’t remember.”
“They came back because I started remembering.”
She cried.
“I was afraid.”
“So was I.”
Fear explained her choice.
It did not erase it.
She gave me a key my father had hidden before his death.
It opened a safe-deposit box.
Inside was a letter and an audio recorder.
My father described discovering the first wedding, the illegal birth, and Helen’s network. He believed Emma was alive.
He also recorded a conversation with Helen.
Helen said, “Natalie was never chosen because of money.”
My father asked, “Then why her?”
Helen answered, “Because of her blood.”
Medical records inside the box showed I carried a rare genetic marker linked to a valuable experimental treatment.
Dr. Vale used me to produce children with the same marker.
Emma had inherited it.
The network was not only selling children.
It was selling access to their genetics.
Helen wanted Emma back because a biotechnology company had offered millions for exclusive medical rights.
The mug was meant to erase my resistance long enough to sign consent forms.
Rebecca looked at me.
“This is bigger than kidnapping.”
My phone rang.
Helen waited at the lake house.
May you like
I agreed to go.
But I would not go alone.
