Chapter 4 - The Child Who Should Not Exist
Emily heard the words, but her mind rejected them.
Harvested your eggs.
The room seemed to recede around her.
“I would remember that.”
Dr. Wells’s expression remained carefully neutral.
“Not necessarily if you were sedated for another procedure.”
“I had my appendix removed six years ago.”
“At St. Catherine’s Clinic?”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked toward the window.
Linda had recommended that clinic.
“She drove you there,” he said.
Emily remembered waking afterward with more pain than expected. Linda had stayed beside her for two days, controlling her medication and refusing visitors.
At the time, Daniel had been attending a medical technology conference in Europe.
“Was my appendix actually removed?” Emily asked.
“We cannot tell without reviewing the operative records.”
Detective Reyes already had her phone in hand.
“St. Catherine’s closed four years ago. We are obtaining archived files.”
Emily’s anger cut through the medication haze.
“Why would anyone steal my eggs?”
Nobody answered.
The detective did not need to.
Emily looked at Daniel.
“Natalie.”
“What about her?”
“The wedding video. Did she say anything else?”
Daniel’s eyes shifted.
“What did you leave out?”
He unlocked the video again.
Natalie’s recorded confession resumed.
“There is something Emily deserves to know,” she said from the screen. “Mother made me promise I would never tell her.”
Daniel paused it.
Emily stared at him.
“Play it.”
“Emily, you just came out of surgery.”
“Play it.”
He obeyed.
Natalie wiped tears from her face.
“Four years ago, Mother brought a baby to the house. She told me the child belonged to one of her employees and needed temporary care. I believed her until I found laboratory reports in Father’s old office.”
Emily’s breathing changed.
“The baby was created using Emily’s eggs.”
Daniel stopped the video again.
“No.”
Emily grabbed the phone from him.
Natalie’s voice continued.
“I don’t know who carried the child. I don’t know who the biological father is. Mother called her Project Grace.”
A photograph appeared in the video.
A little girl with dark brown hair stood beside a white garden wall.
She looked about four years old.
Her eyes were gray.
Emily had gray eyes.
So did Daniel.
The child smiled with one corner of her mouth lifted slightly higher than the other.
It was the same crooked smile Emily saw in the mirror every morning.
Her hands began shaking.
“Where is she?”
“Natalie said she was moved between private homes,” Daniel replied. “The last location she knew was somewhere called Briar House.”
Emily turned to Reyes.
“Find her.”
“We’re already searching.”
“Find her now.”
Reyes nodded once.
“We will.”
Emily watched the child’s face on the screen.
A daughter she had never carried.
A daughter whose existence had been hidden from her.
“Who is the father?”
Daniel looked devastated.
“We don’t know.”
“Was it you?”
“I never provided genetic material for anything like this.”
“But your company had access to medical research facilities.”
“Not after my father shut the division down.”
“Your mother controlled it.”
“Linda controlled the company, but I didn’t know she had revived the program.”
Emily’s eyes burned.
“You didn’t know about the sale. You didn’t know about the device. You didn’t know about your first wife. You didn’t know your mother might not be your mother.”
“I know how this sounds.”
“It sounds like I married into a family built on lies.”
Daniel did not defend himself.
That hurt more than an argument would have.
Detective Reyes received another call and stepped outside.
Emily continued watching Natalie’s confession.
The video revealed that Linda kept a locked room beneath the Mercer estate greenhouse. Natalie entered it twice. Inside were medical files, photographs of children, and lists of women treated at clinics connected to Mercer Medical Systems.
Emily’s name appeared on one list.
Rebecca’s name appeared on another.
The recording ended with Natalie leaning toward the camera.
“If Mother realizes I found the files, she will come after me. If the wedding goes forward, it means I failed.”
The screen went black.
Emily looked at the clock.
The wedding had not gone forward.
Natalie had vanished.
“She may still be alive,” Daniel said.
Emily handed back the phone.
“Your mother knows where she is.”
“Linda says she doesn’t.”
“Linda also said I was faking surgery.”
Daniel lowered his voice.
“The police searched the estate.”
“And?”
“They found the room beneath the greenhouse.”
Emily waited.
“It was empty.”
Of course it was.
Linda always planned ahead.
Reyes returned.
“We found St. Catherine’s archive.”
“Is my record there?”
“Yes. But the file does not list an appendectomy.”
Emily felt a chill.
“What does it list?”
“A laparoscopic fertility procedure authorized by your husband.”
Daniel shot to his feet.
“I never authorized that.”
Reyes held up a copy.
“The signature appears to be yours.”
“It was forged.”
“The consent form includes a copy of your driver’s license.”
“My wallet was stolen around that time.”
Emily remembered.
Daniel’s wallet disappeared from his office during a family gathering. Linda insisted one of the caterers had taken it. Two days later, it was found in Natalie’s car.
The police never investigated.
Reyes placed another page on the bed.
“The clinic transferred twelve viable embryos to a Mercer Medical research facility.”
“Twelve?” Emily whispered.
“We only know of one child,” Daniel said.
Reyes met his eyes.
“The records indicate that five embryos were successfully implanted.”
Silence followed.
Emily stared at the little girl’s photograph.
“One child,” she said. “Natalie knew about one child.”
“There may have been others,” Reyes replied.
“How many survived?”
“The archive does not say.”
Daniel looked sick.
Emily forced herself to ask the question.
“Who were the surrogates?”
Reyes’s expression tightened.
“Four were paid volunteers.”
“And the fifth?”
“The fifth woman was admitted under another patient’s identity.”
“Whose identity?”
“Rebecca Ellis Mercer.”
Daniel’s phone rang.
The caller ID displayed Natalie.
He answered immediately.
“Natalie?”
No one spoke.
Then a child’s voice whispered through the speaker.
“Mr. Daniel?”
Daniel put the call on speaker.
Emily’s heart hammered.
“Who is this?” he asked gently.
“My name is Grace.”
Emily covered her mouth.
The child began crying.
“Aunt Natalie told me to call you if the bad woman came back.”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is Natalie with you?”
A noise sounded in the background.
A door opening.
Grace stopped crying.
Her breathing became shallow.
“Grace?” Emily said. “My name is Emily. I’m here with Daniel.”
The child was silent for several seconds.
Then she whispered, “I know your face.”
Emily’s eyes filled with tears.
“How?”
“There are pictures of you in the sleeping room.”
A woman’s voice called from somewhere behind the child.
Grace gasped.
“The bad woman found the phone.”
The line disconnected.
Daniel tried calling back.
The number was unavailable.
Detective Reyes immediately contacted the tracing unit.
Emily stared at the dead screen.
Before the detective reached the door, Daniel’s phone received a photograph.
Grace sat tied to a wooden chair.
Behind her stood Natalie.
Natalie’s hands were also bound.
May you like
Across the bottom of the image was a message.
Withdraw your vote against the sale by midnight, or the children disappear forever.
