Chapter 8 - WHY DAVID CHOSE SARAH
Sarah did not sleep.
At dawn she sat inside the secure house with David’s note in front of her.
I REFUSE TO DO THIS TO HER.
She tried to decide whether it was evidence of betrayal or proof that David had resisted one.
Sterling entered carrying coffee.
She did not take it.
“Did he love me?”
Sterling stopped.
“What?”
“David.”
“Yes.”
“You answered too quickly.”
“Because there is no doubt.”
Sarah looked at him.
“Apparently our first meeting was arranged.”
Sterling sat opposite her.
“I don’t know what David knew when you met.”
“He knew something.”
“Maybe.”
“I need facts.”
Sterling nodded.
“Then we find them.”
They searched David’s old emails.
Years of messages.
Most ordinary.
Work.
Travel.
Invoices.
Then Sterling found a hidden archive.
Sarah recognized David’s password style.
The folder was labeled S.
Inside were emails between David and Eleanor from nine years earlier.
Eleanor:
MEET HER ON THURSDAY.
David:
No.
Eleanor:
This is not optional.
David:
I’m not participating in your breeding project.
Sarah stopped reading.
Sterling looked at her.
“Sarah.”
“Keep going.”
Eleanor:
You don’t have to marry her.
Meet her.
David:
Why Sarah Morgan?
Eleanor:
Because she is compatible.
David:
She is a person.
Not a profile.
Eleanor:
Then meet the person.
Sarah’s eyes burned.
Sterling scrolled.
Two weeks later:
David:
I met her.
Eleanor:
And?
David:
Never contact her.
Eleanor:
So you dislike her?
David:
I said never contact her.
Eleanor:
Interesting.
Sarah almost laughed through tears.
That sounded like David.
Another email.
Three months later.
Eleanor:
You’re seeing her.
David:
Stay away from Sarah.
Eleanor:
You knew why she was selected.
David:
I knew why YOU selected her.
That has nothing to do with why I love her.
Sarah covered her mouth.
The room blurred.
Sterling looked away to give her privacy.
David had known.
But he had also resisted.
Had their marriage been real?
Yes.
Sarah knew it now.
Whatever machinery had placed them in the same room, the years afterward belonged to them.
Nobody fabricated David dancing barefoot in their kitchen.
Nobody engineered the ridiculous Christmas sweater he wore because Sarah liked it.
Nobody ordered him to sit on a bathroom floor beside her for six hours after the miscarriage.
She wiped her tears.
“What was compatibility?”
Sterling searched further.
The answer appeared in a medical file.
R-17 was not a single gene.
It was a combination of markers associated with unusually high resistance to certain neurological diseases, high cognitive performance, and stress tolerance.
Pseudo-science mixed with real genetics.
The program had spent decades pairing people based on probability.
Sarah’s profile was considered unusually compatible with David’s.
“Selective breeding,” Sarah whispered.
Sterling nodded grimly.
“Among wealthy families.”
“And military families.”
“Yes.”
Sarah stood.
“My daughter is not an experiment.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“They think she is.”
That was the danger.
Eleanor had tried to erase paternity.
Perhaps not to steal the inheritance.
Perhaps to hide the child from the program.
But if so—
Why frame Sarah for murder?
Why attack her?
The answer arrived from Chloe.
Not by phone.
By email.
A scheduled message hit Sarah’s inbox at 9:00 a.m.
IF YOU’RE READING THIS, THEY TOOK ME.
I FOUND OUT WHY MOTHER HATES YOU.
There was an attachment.
A video.
Chloe appeared on screen inside Eleanor’s hidden storage room.
“If something happens to me, Sarah, you need to know this.”
She held up a document.
“Mother didn’t arrange your marriage.”
Sarah frowned.
“David’s father did.”
Chloe continued.
“His name isn’t the one on our birth certificates.”
Sterling leaned closer.
“What?”
Chloe showed another page.
PATERNITY REPORT.
DAVID WHITMORE.
BIOLOGICAL FATHER:
CHARLES BROOKS.
Sterling stopped breathing.
Sarah stared at him.
His father.
David’s biological father.
Which meant—
Sterling and David could have been brothers.
Sterling sank into the chair.
“No.”
Chloe continued in the recording.
“That’s why Sterling was chosen as David’s lawyer.”
Sarah looked toward him.
Sterling’s eyes were wet.
“He wanted his sons close.”
Chloe spoke again.
“And there’s more.”
She lifted another paper.
“The woman listed as David’s biological mother, Margaret Hale?”
Sarah remembered the photograph.
“She wasn’t Marcus Hale’s mother.”
Hale, standing at the doorway, froze.
Chloe finished:
“Margaret Hale was Eleanor’s sister.”
Silence.
The family tree collapsed again.
Eleanor had not simply stolen a stranger’s child.
David had been her nephew.
Sarah whispered, “Why hide that?”
Then Chloe answered from the recording as if she could hear.
“Because Margaret tried to expose Saint Catherine’s.”
The video ended.
Hale walked into the room.
“My mother’s name was Margaret.”
Sarah looked at him.
“Maybe that part was true.”
His face was pale.
Sterling stood.
“If Charles Brooks was David’s father…”
Hale finished the thought.
“Then Charles is the architect.”
Sarah’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
Everyone froze.
She answered.
“Sarah Whitmore?”
An elderly male voice.
“Yes.”
“My name is Charles Brooks.”
Sterling grabbed the table.
Sarah looked at him.
The voice continued.
“I have Chloe.”
Sarah’s blood went cold.
“Let her go.”
“I will.”
“What do you want?”
“You.”
Sterling shook his head violently.
Sarah ignored him.
“Why?”
May you like
Charles Brooks said:
“Because your husband died before he could tell you why your daughter must never be born inside the United States.”
