Chapter 5 - THE SIX CHILDREN
The birth records identified six children born through arranged pairings connected to the farmhouse.
Three were listed as dead.
Two had been adopted under sealed identities.
One was missing.
Anna believed the deaths were false.
Samuel Vale’s law firm handled every case.
Ranger Morris issued warrants for Vale and the biotechnology company, Genesis Frontier.
Vale disappeared before officers reached his Dallas office.
Genesis Frontier denied knowing Margaret.
Their lawyers called the documents fabricated.
But the refrigerated case had their serial number.
A former lab technician named Rachel Kim contacted Morris after seeing the farmhouse on the news.
She had worked at Genesis Frontier for eight years.
The company studied children carrying the Carter mutation.
The first six were known internally as the Bluebonnet Group.
Rachel had seen five alive.
They lived under company guardianship.
Some had been told their parents abandoned them.
Others believed they were orphans.
The oldest was twenty-two.
The youngest was four.
Rachel agreed to testify if protected.
Before officers could reach her apartment, she vanished.
Her front door was open.
A coffee cup remained warm.
On the wall, someone had written SUBJECTS BELONG TO GENESIS.
Anna recognized the handwriting.
Walter Carter’s.
Margaret’s husband had supposedly died fifteen years earlier.
No body had ever been recovered.
Margaret claimed he drowned in the Gulf.
Anna had always believed he survived.
Walter was not only alive.
He was still running the operation.
Michael’s expression changed when he heard the name.
He admitted receiving anonymous instructions for years.
Messages told him where to work, whom to marry, and when to bring me to Texas.
He assumed they came from Margaret.
Some were signed W.
He had obeyed without asking.
That did not excuse him.
But it revealed the person above Margaret.
Then my phone rang.
The number belonged to Rachel Kim.
Ranger Morris answered.
A man spoke.
“Bring Emily to the barn at midnight.”
Behind him, a woman cried.
Rachel.
Then another voice appeared.
A child.
“Mom?”
The word was directed at me.
May you like
I had never given birth before.
At least, I did not remember doing so.
