Chapter 6 - The Blood They Wanted
Emergency lights washed the hospital corridor in red.
Sergeant Ortiz drew her weapon and ordered Amelia, Claire, and Daniel into the bathroom. The maternity wing had lost power, but the rest of Saint Anne’s remained lit. That meant the outage was not accidental.
Richard’s attorneys shouted from the hall. Nurses moved patients away from elevators. Somewhere, a child began crying.
Amelia locked the bathroom door and pressed her back against it.
Claire whispered, “What did Evelyn mean about the baby’s blood?”
“I do not know.”
Daniel lowered himself beside the sink, fighting dizziness. “Your husband owns genetic testing companies.”
Amelia looked at him.
Vale Meridian had acquired two medical laboratories the previous year. Richard said the investment was part of a personalized-health expansion. He had spoken enthusiastically about prenatal screening and inherited disease detection.
Amelia remembered the blood tests he insisted she take after she became pregnant. Different clinics. Different doctors. Each one recommended by him.
The bathroom handle moved.
Ortiz knocked in a coded rhythm and identified herself. Amelia opened the door.
The corridor was empty except for hospital staff and two uniformed officers. Richard had vanished during the blackout.
“He did not come inside,” Ortiz said. “He used the outage to leave.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody entered the laboratory downstairs.”
Security footage showed a masked person accessing the prenatal sample vault with an administrator’s badge. The intruder removed three blood tubes labeled with Amelia’s name and destroyed the backup refrigerator before escaping through a service exit.
“They did not come for me,” Amelia said. “They came for the samples.”
Ortiz agreed. “Which makes the call from Evelyn very important.”
They moved Amelia to a secure room on another floor. Federal agents arrived before dawn, led by Special Agent Maya Chen, an aviation-crimes investigator whose name Amelia recognized from the emergency server agreement.
Maya was the person Claire had contacted weeks earlier.
She listened to every detail, then confirmed that Amelia’s bracelet had transmitted only fourteen seconds of usable audio. The file contained rotor noise, Richard saying, “Come closer,” Amelia screaming, and a final phrase distorted by wind.
It was not enough by itself.
“The data proves a fall,” Maya said. “Not a push.”
Daniel’s testimony could establish the push, but Richard’s legal team had already begun attacking his credibility. They released records showing Daniel had been disciplined in the military after a classified incident. The records were genuine, though incomplete.
“He will destroy all of us separately,” Claire said.
“Then we do not stay separate,” Amelia replied.
Maya placed a photograph on the table. It showed a younger Richard standing beside his father, Charles Vale, at a private genetic research facility in Nevada. Evelyn stood behind them. In her arms was a baby.
The photograph was dated thirty-four years earlier.
Richard was thirty-six.
“That is not him,” Amelia said.
The baby in Evelyn’s arms had dark hair. Richard had been blond since childhood, according to every family portrait.
Maya nodded. “The facility burned two weeks after this picture was taken. Three researchers died. All records were reported destroyed.”
“What does this have to do with my child?”
“We do not know yet.”
Claire studied the photograph. “Who is the baby?”
Maya turned it over.
A handwritten note covered the back.
Subject A survived. Subject B relocated. Maternal line remains viable.
Amelia felt cold despite the blanket around her shoulders.
Her mother had died when Amelia was four. She had been told it was an aneurysm. Her father never discussed the details.
Maya continued. “We found this image in a sealed file connected to your mother.”
“My mother knew the Vales?”
“She worked at the Nevada facility.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Amelia thought of Evelyn’s warning: Do not let them see the blood.
A nurse entered to check the fetal monitor. Amelia watched the line of the baby’s heartbeat move steadily across the screen.
“What did the prenatal tests show?” she asked.
The nurse looked confused. “I do not have access to your external test results.”
Richard always received them first.
Maya’s phone rang. She stepped into the hall, then returned with a grim expression.
“Evelyn Vale’s estate reported a fire twenty minutes ago.”
Amelia sat upright. “Is she alive?”
“No body has been found.”
On the television, live footage showed flames consuming the Santa Barbara mansion.
A news reporter said investigators believed Evelyn had been trapped inside.
Then Amelia noticed something behind the reporter: a black SUV leaving the estate road.
The same model shown in the photograph of Noah.
Maya paused the broadcast and enlarged the image.
Through the windshield, two faces were visible.
May you like
Noah was driving.
Evelyn Vale sat beside him.
