Chapter 3 - THE PREGNANCY I FORGOT
At the hospital, Dr. Natalie Reed reviewed the old ultrasound.
It carried my name, date of birth, and medical identification number.
The pregnancy had progressed to twenty-six weeks.
Two girls.
Strong heartbeats.
According to my official history, I had never been pregnant before.
Jason entered my life two years later.
At least, that was what I believed.
Detective Ortiz showed me an old traffic-camera image.
Jason and I stood outside a private medical clinic four years earlier.
He had one arm around my waist.
I appeared sedated.
“We knew each other,” I whispered.
Daniel looked sick.
Our mother had told him I spent that year in a treatment center after a breakdown.
The facility belonged to Jason’s uncle, Dr. Samuel Miller.
I remembered white walls.
Bitter medication.
A nurse telling me the babies were imaginary.
The memories returned as fragments.
A monitor showing two moving shapes.
Jason standing beside a bed.
A woman carrying away a pink blanket.
Ortiz searched the basement documents.
A birth record listed two infant girls.
Baby A: transferred.
Baby B: deceased.
No legal death certificate existed.
The transfer document named Jason as the father.
DNA testing later proved he was not.
The biological donor field had been replaced.
Jason had not only hidden my first pregnancy.
He had helped create it through a fertility procedure performed without consent.
When Ortiz confronted him, he asked for immunity.
He offered the location of Baby A.
Rebecca Sloan, the federal prosecutor, refused full immunity but agreed to hear him.
Jason said my surviving daughter was named Lily.
She was now three.
His mother, Margaret Miller, had raised her.
Margaret had supposedly died before I met Jason.
Another lie.
Jason claimed the current pregnancy was intended to produce a genetic match for Lily, who had a serious immune disorder.
The shock collar, confinement, and threats were designed to force me to surrender medical and parental rights after delivery.
“Why the recorder?” Ortiz asked.
Jason smiled.
“She always records when she thinks she’s winning.”
He knew I had tried to collect evidence before.
He had searched my belongings.
He had found two ordinary recorders and destroyed them.
He believed the hidden device would be another physical object he could locate.
He never expected it behind my teeth.
Then Tyler offered information.
Jason had staged abuse videos with other women.
Some begged.
Some signed documents.
One disappeared.
Tyler had copies.
He kept them because he thought they gave him leverage.
Among the files was a video of Margaret holding a toddler.
May you like
Lily.
My daughter looked directly into the camera and asked, “When is my real mommy coming?”
