Chapter 7 - THE BLOOD THEY WANTED
The blood trait involved regenerative proteins useful in treating a rare immune disorder shared by Derek and Michael.
Anna’s plasma had been collected repeatedly during her confinement.
Some procedures occurred without consent.
Her medical decline came partly from years of extraction.
My routine blood tests during marriage had been unusually frequent.
Derek claimed I was anemic.
In reality, samples went to Vale laboratories.
The family had treated marriage as a medical supply contract.
Margaret did not see herself as cruel.
She believed family survival justified bodily sacrifice.
“Derek would have died as a child without Anna,” she said during interrogation.
Rachel answered, “Saving one person does not create ownership over another.”
Margaret called that sentimental law.
The recordings, documents, and lab records transformed the investigation into federal medical trafficking.
Vale laboratories were raided.
Several patients were found under false identities.
Others had signed consent forms while sedated.
A freezer archive contained my samples labeled FUTURE MATERNAL SOURCE.
I was not pregnant.
But the family had stored embryos created from my eggs during a surgery Derek arranged two years earlier.
I believed the procedure removed ovarian cysts.
They harvested eggs.
Fertilized them using Derek’s sample.
Stored six embryos.
Why?
Margaret wanted a genetically compatible child who could provide future treatment for both sons.
She had already implanted one embryo into a surrogate.
The carrier was my mother.
Helen was fifty-nine.
Medical scans confirmed she had undergone an experimental embryo transfer months earlier and later lost the pregnancy.
She had agreed because Margaret promised to erase the family debt.
My mother had attempted to carry my biological child without telling me.
She began crying when confronted.
“I thought I could give you the baby after.”
“You thought my body and child could repay your debt.”
“I was desperate.”
Desperation explained.
It did not authorize.
A second embryo had been transferred successfully.
Carrier name sealed.
Current gestation: thirty-two weeks.
The family planned to place the baby under Derek’s guardianship after declaring me incompetent.
My biological child existed inside another woman’s body.
No one knew where she was.
Emma recognized the clinic code.
The carrier was Caroline Vale, Dr. Samuel Vale’s daughter.
Caroline had entered the program voluntarily for money, then tried to withdraw.
Margaret confined her.
Federal agents traced her to a rural maternity house.
They found the room empty.
A note remained on the bed.
CLAIRE, I TOOK YOUR BABY AWAY FROM THEM.
Caroline had escaped.
The question was whether she escaped with the pregnancy—
or whether someone helped her disappear for another purpose.
Then Derek requested to speak with me.
He offered Caroline’s location in exchange for withdrawal of my attempted-murder accusation.
I refused.
May you like
He smiled behind the jailhouse glass.
“You’ll change your mind when you learn who the real father is.”
