Chapter 5 - The Marriage That Began Before the Wedding
Rebecca drove through the lower exit and turned into midday traffic.
The black sedan followed.
“Who is he?” Natalie asked.
“His name is Calvin Rusk. Diane uses him when she needs someone frightened.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he is dangerous without needing to be told exactly what to do.”
Rebecca took a hard turn.
A delivery truck moved between them and the black car.
Natalie looked again at the photograph.
Mark appeared younger but unmistakable. His hand rested on the metal rail at the end of Natalie’s hospital bed.
“What happened to me?”
“You collapsed at the university.”
“I remember dehydration.”
“You were drugged.”
“By whom?”
“A research recruiter connected to Marrow.”
Rebecca turned into an underground shopping-center garage, circled two levels, and exited onto another street.
The black car did not reappear.
“They targeted women with specific genetic profiles,” Rebecca continued. “Healthy women. Fertile women. Women with few close relatives.”
“I had relatives.”
“You had people listed on paper. That is not the same as having people who would ask the right questions.”
Natalie swallowed.
“My aunt raised me.”
“Your aunt was paid.”
“No.”
“I sent letters. She returned them unopened.”
“You disappeared.”
“I was forced to.”
Rebecca’s voice cracked, but she did not slow the car.
“After the accident, the Mercers told me they could make your father’s debts disappear. They threatened to take you from me. When I refused, they had me declared unstable.”
Natalie shook her head.
“This sounds insane.”
“It was designed to sound insane.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“I did. The officer who interviewed me later became head of security for a Marrow clinic.”
Rebecca pulled into an old industrial district and stopped beside a boarded warehouse.
“Come inside.”
Natalie did not move.
“I’m supposed to believe my entire life was arranged?”
“No. You are supposed to look at evidence.”
Rebecca opened the warehouse door.
Inside, a narrow office had been furnished with a folding table, two chairs, and several metal storage boxes. Newspapers covered one wall.
Some were twenty years old.
Every article concerned the Mercer family, Marrow Health, missing women, sealed lawsuits, or children born through private fertility programs.
Red lines connected names and dates.
Natalie approached the wall.
Her own photograph hung near the center.
Below it was Mark’s wedding portrait.
A red line connected them to the photograph from the university clinic.
“What is stage four?” Natalie asked.
Rebecca’s face changed.
“Where did you see that?”
“On the consent form.”
Rebecca went to one of the storage boxes and removed a thin file.
“Marrow divided the program into stages. Stage one identified candidates. Stage two created dependency. Stage three placed the woman inside a controlled family system.”
“And stage four?”
“Pregnancy.”
Natalie felt sick.
“We were trying to have a baby.”
“You were.”
“What does that mean?”
Rebecca placed the file on the table.
Inside were laboratory reports bearing Mark’s name.
His fertility tests.
The tests he claimed never to have taken.
Natalie read the results.
Severe infertility.
Probability of natural conception: negligible.
She looked up.
“He knew.”
“Yes.”
“Diane knew.”
“Yes.”
“Then why blame me?”
“Because the child they want is not supposed to be conceived naturally.”
Natalie stepped away from the table.
“What child?”
Rebecca opened another folder.
This one contained charts of blood types, hereditary traits, immune responses, and family histories.
Natalie’s name appeared beside a donor number.
The donor’s identity was hidden.
“They intend to implant an embryo on Friday,” Rebecca said.
Natalie stared at her.
“Without telling me?”
“They have done worse.”
“Why me?”
Rebecca looked toward the wall of names.
“Because of what is in your blood.”
Natalie remembered the old form.
Previous response satisfactory.
“What response?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“When you were nineteen, they gave you a trial injection.”
“What kind of injection?”
“They claimed it was part of a dehydration treatment. It was designed to alter your immune response so your body would accept a particular embryo.”
Natalie pressed both hands against the table.
“No.”
“You became ill for weeks afterward.”
“I had a virus.”
“That is what they told you.”
Natalie closed her eyes.
The memory returned in fragments.
A white room.
A needle in her arm.
Mark’s voice somewhere beyond a curtain.
Her own body burning with fever.
She opened her eyes.
“Why would Mark marry me six years later instead of doing this then?”
“Because the trial nearly killed you. They had to wait until your markers stabilized.”
Natalie looked at the wall again.
Several women’s photographs had black circles drawn around them.
“What do the circles mean?”
Rebecca did not answer.
Natalie approached the closest photograph.
A woman named Elise Morgan.
Missing for nine years.
Another named Rachel Dane.
Died from complications following an unregistered fertility procedure.
A third woman had no article attached.
Only a photograph.
Natalie recognized her.
It was the dark-haired woman standing beside Mark’s father in Diane’s study.
“Who is she?”
Rebecca came to stand beside her.
“Her name was Anna Vale.”
“Was?”
Rebecca removed the photograph from the wall.
“Anna was Mark’s first wife.”
Natalie stared at her.
“Mark was never married.”
“That is what the public records say.”
“What happened to her?”
Rebecca turned the photograph over.
May you like
On the back, Anna had written a single sentence.
IF I DISAPPEAR, DIANE PUT SOMETHING INSIDE ME.
