Chapter 8 - The Institute Behind the Trees
Vale Children’s Genetic Institute stood behind a line of pine trees and a twelve-foot stone wall.
There were no signs near the road.
No public entrance.
Only a steel gate monitored by cameras.
Victoria directed Daniel to a narrow service road that disappeared behind the east wing. They left the car beneath an abandoned loading structure and found a locked metal door partly concealed by ivy.
Brooke entered the code.
10141989.
The lock clicked open.
Inside, a concrete staircase led underground.
The air smelled of dust and antiseptic.
Emergency lights flickered along the walls.
“This place is operational,” Daniel whispered.
Fresh shoe prints marked the floor.
Emily kept Sophie’s drawing inside her coat pocket.
They followed a service corridor beneath the institute. Pipes ran overhead. Several doors had been welded shut.
At the end of the hall, they found an old sign.
Saint Catherine Reproductive Research Annex.
Brooke touched the faded letters.
“This is where I was born.”
Victoria looked away.
A camera above the doorway rotated toward them.
Daniel noticed it.
“We’ve been seen.”
A voice emerged from a speaker.
“Daniel.”
Arthur Vale sounded older than Daniel remembered, but calm.
“I wondered how long it would take.”
Daniel looked at the camera.
“You entered my daughter’s hospital room.”
“I visited a patient who needed hope.”
“You threatened her.”
“I offered help.”
Emily stepped beneath the camera.
“Then speak to me.”
There was a pause.
“Emily Parker. You have protected Sophie admirably.”
“You have been monitoring her.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she may be the most important child ever born from Richard’s line.”
Emily’s stomach turned.
“She is not part of your program.”
“She carries a combination we believed impossible.”
Daniel struck the wall beneath the camera.
“Open the door.”
A lock released ahead.
They entered a laboratory unlike anything visible on the institute’s public website.
Glass chambers held tissue samples.
Computer screens displayed family trees.
Photographs of children covered one wall.
Emily found Sophie immediately.
There were images from infancy, preschool, hospital visits, and playgrounds.
One photograph had been taken through the window of their apartment.
Daniel stared at the wall.
“You watched them.”
Arthur Vale entered through a side door.
He wore a white coat and blue tie.
Sophie had described him perfectly.
He was in his late seventies, but his posture remained straight.
Victoria faced him.
“Arthur.”
“Victoria.”
“You were supposed to be dead.”
“You were supposed to be intelligent enough not to bring them here.”
Daniel moved toward him, but Emily blocked his path.
She needed answers more than violence.
“Can you save Sophie?”
Arthur looked at her.
“Yes.”
The word filled the room.
“How?”
“With a regenerative treatment created from compatible family cells.”
“Whose cells?”
Arthur’s gaze moved to Brooke.
“Hers, potentially.”
Brooke stepped back.
“Why me?”
“Your cellular markers are closer to Sophie’s than Daniel’s. You share Richard’s paternal line without carrying several of Daniel’s maternal risk factors.”
Victoria’s expression tightened.
“You tested Brooke without consent.”
“I tested all six.”
“Where are the others?” Brooke asked.
Arthur smiled faintly.
“Alive.”
“Names.”
“Not yet.”
Daniel grabbed Arthur by the coat.
“My daughter is dying.”
Arthur did not resist.
“And your anger will not save her.”
Emily touched Daniel’s arm.
He released the doctor.
Arthur adjusted his coat.
“Sophie’s condition is advanced. A transplant may keep her alive, but her antibody profile makes rejection likely. My treatment could repair enough of her heart to delay or avoid transplantation.”
“What is the risk?” Emily asked.
Arthur’s eyes sharpened.
“Significant.”
“How significant?”
“Two previous children developed uncontrolled immune reactions.”
“They died?”
“One died. One survived with neurological damage.”
Emily felt the room sway.
“You want to experiment on my daughter.”
“I want to give her an option.”
Daniel pointed at the photographs.
“You created the condition that is killing her.”
“No. Richard’s family carried the mutation long before Saint Catherine.”
“You used his DNA anyway.”
Arthur’s face hardened.
“We did not understand the full risk.”
“And when you did?”
“We stopped the original program.”
Victoria laughed bitterly.
“You continued it in secret.”
Arthur looked at her.
“I continued searching for a cure.”
Brooke walked toward the family trees displayed on the monitor.
Six branches extended from Richard Whitmore’s name.
One branch carried Brooke’s name.
One carried Daniel’s.
Four were coded only with numbers.
Below Daniel’s branch appeared Sophie.
Below another hidden branch were two children.
Emily pointed to them.
“Who are they?”
Arthur moved between her and the screen.
“Not relevant tonight.”
“They may be Sophie’s relatives.”
“They may also be the reason she is still alive.”
He opened a secure cabinet and removed a cryogenic container.
Inside were several labeled vials.
One label read SOPHIE PARKER.
Emily stared at it.
“How did you get her cells?”
Arthur’s silence answered.
“You stole them.”
“Discarded medical samples were transferred through research agreements.”
“Without my consent.”
“The law is less clear than you imagine.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“The law will be clear when I destroy this institute.”
Arthur smiled.
“You cannot destroy what your father built.”
“My father tried to expose you.”
“Your father tried to control discoveries he did not understand.”
Victoria’s voice became quiet.
“You killed him.”
Arthur looked at her.
“No.”
“He was going to take the ledger to federal investigators.”
“He never had the ledger.”
“Then who did?”
Arthur glanced toward the camera.
For the first time, fear entered his expression.
A warning alarm sounded.
The laboratory lights turned red.
Someone had entered the institute above them.
Arthur looked at Emily.
“You were followed.”
Security monitors flickered on.
A group of armed men moved through the east wing.
They wore no police insignia.
The leader removed his mask.
Daniel recognized him.
May you like
It was Marcus Hale, the Whitmore family’s longtime security director.
The man Daniel had personally sent to protect Sophie at the hospital.
