Chapter 4 - THE EMBRYO
Luke demanded a second test.
Then a third.
All confirmed the same thing.
My daughter was genetically mine.
Luke was not her father.
He paced beside the hospital window, hands shaking.
“I don’t understand.”
I did.
Not everything.
But enough.
Diane had chosen the pregnancy.
She selected the embryo.
She monitored the sex.
When the child was female, she scheduled the termination.
I had never been a daughter-in-law to her.
I was a body she believed belonged to the family.
Detective Ortiz found payments from a Mercer trust to Dr. Vale’s clinic.
One payment occurred three days before my positive pregnancy test.
The memo line read SUCCESSION ATTEMPT FOUR.
Four.
There had been three earlier attempts.
Dr. Brooks searched my medical records and found gaps.
Two unexplained hospitalizations.
One “chemical pregnancy.”
One emergency procedure listed as removal of nonviable tissue.
I remembered Luke bringing me soup afterward.
Diane sitting beside the bed.
A mug on the nightstand.
Had I been pregnant before?
Had there been other girls?
Luke sat down hard.
“My mother told me you had miscarriages.”
“She told both of us.”
Daniel entered with attorney Rebecca Sloan, a former federal prosecutor specializing in medical fraud.
Rebecca reviewed the records.
“This is reproductive assault, falsification, conspiracy, and potentially homicide.”
Luke looked at me.
“I didn’t know.”
“You knew she wanted a grandson.”
“I thought it was tradition.”
“She attacked me with a stick.”
His face collapsed.
“I should have stopped her years ago.”
“Yes.”
I did not soften the word.
Rebecca filed emergency protective orders.
Diane’s attorney responded within an hour.
He claimed I was mentally unstable and Luke was coercing me to accuse his mother.
Diane had filed for temporary guardianship over me.
The petition contained psychiatric records signed by Dr. Vale.
They described hallucinations, aggression, and dangerous prenatal behavior.
All false.
The hearing was scheduled for the following morning.
Diane planned to use the court to control my body before anyone found the ledger.
Then Eleanor called again.
She had located Dr. Vale.
He was staying at an abandoned maternity home outside the city.
She was going there alone.
Ortiz told her to wait.
Eleanor replied, “I waited thirty-one years.”
The line disconnected.
Minutes later, Ortiz received a photograph from Eleanor’s phone.
It showed Dr. Vale tied to a chair.
Behind him stood another woman holding Robert’s brown ledger.
The woman looked almost exactly like Diane.
Luke stared at the image.
May you like
“That’s Aunt Margaret.”
Diane had an identical twin.
