Chapter 2 - FORTY-SEVEN CALLS
By August, Olivia’s pregnancy could no longer be hidden.
She had never intended to hide it.
But hiding became easier than explaining why the baby’s father refused to speak to her.
Friends asked questions.
Coworkers tried not to.
Olivia kept working.
She supervised food drives, youth programs, housing grants.
Every morning she entered the Carter Foundation office with her shoulders straight.
Every evening she returned home and cried.
Her father had been dead for six years.
Michael Carter had raised Olivia after her mother died from cancer when Olivia was twelve.
He had been a quiet man.
An attorney by training.
A historian by obsession.
And someone who had never trusted the Hayes family.
Olivia remembered the first time she mentioned Dylan’s surname.
Her father had stopped cutting vegetables.
“Hayes?”
“Yes.”
“Which Hayes?”
“Victoria Hayes’s son.”
Michael had looked at her for several seconds.
Then said something she never forgot.
“Be careful around families that confuse protecting a legacy with protecting the truth.”
At the time, Olivia thought he was being dramatic.
After his death, she found boxes of documents in his study.
Most concerned an old legal matter involving Rebecca Carter, Michael’s younger sister.
Rebecca had disappeared in 1997.
Police believed she left voluntarily.
Michael never believed it.
He spent twenty years searching for her.
There were photographs.
Hotel receipts.
Handwritten notes.
One name appeared again and again.
Hayes.
Olivia had not made the connection until Victoria began interfering in her relationship.
Then she returned to the boxes.
Rebecca had been twenty-six when she disappeared.
She had worked at Hayes Pharmaceutical, a company owned by Dylan’s grandfather.
According to Michael’s notes, Rebecca had been involved romantically with someone inside the Hayes family.
The identity had been deliberately removed from several documents.
But one photograph remained.
Rebecca standing beside a young Victoria Hayes.
They were smiling.
Friends.
That shocked Olivia.
Victoria had never mentioned knowing Rebecca.
Olivia contacted Dr. Margaret Sloan.
Margaret had been Michael Carter’s closest friend.
She was also one of the few people who knew about his investigation.
When Olivia showed her the photograph, Margaret became pale.
“Where did you find this?”
“My father’s archive.”
Margaret sat down.
“You need to stop looking.”
“Why?”
“Because Michael spent half his life doing exactly that.”
“And?”
“He believed Rebecca discovered something at Hayes Pharmaceutical.”
“What?”
Margaret hesitated.
“Something involving clinical trials.”
Olivia stared at her.
“And the pregnancy?”
Margaret looked away.
“You know about that too.”
“My father wrote that Rebecca was pregnant when she vanished.”
“Yes.”
“Who was the father?”
Margaret remained silent.
Olivia understood.
“You know.”
“I know what Michael believed.”
“Tell me.”
“Not while you’re pregnant.”
Olivia laughed angrily.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I’m giving you.”
Margaret stood.
“You need to concentrate on the baby.”
“I am.”
“And Dylan?”
Olivia’s eyes filled.
“He thinks the baby isn’t his.”
Margaret stopped.
“What?”
Olivia showed her the forged medical consultation.
Margaret read it twice.
Then a third time.
“This isn’t just fake.”
“What do you mean?”
Margaret pointed at the document number.
“This template was discontinued four years ago.”
Olivia stared.
“Could someone outside the clinic know that?”
“Possibly.”
Margaret flipped the page.
“But this physician identification code belongs to a doctor who retired three years ago.”
Olivia felt cold.
“So whoever created it had old clinic records.”
Margaret nodded.
“Or access to someone who did.”
Olivia looked toward the box containing Michael Carter’s files.
“What if this is connected?”
Margaret’s answer frightened her more than denial would have.
“I think it is.”
That afternoon Margaret ordered an independent prenatal paternity analysis.
The laboratory results arrived twelve days later.
Probability of Dylan Hayes’s paternity:
99.9998%.
Olivia mailed a certified copy to Dylan.
It was signed for.
She never received a response.
She called him forty-seven times.
On the forty-eighth attempt, a recorded message informed her the number had blocked incoming calls.
That was when Olivia finally stopped begging.
She placed both hands on her stomach.
The baby kicked.
“All right,” she whispered.
“It’s you and me.”
But somebody else was listening.
Across town, Victoria Hayes opened an email from a private security consultant.
SUBJECT: Carter Pregnancy.
The attachment contained a photograph of Olivia leaving Dr. Sloan’s office.
Victoria stared at it for several seconds.
May you like
Then she typed:
Proceed.
