Chapter 3 - The Empty Cell
The fire began in the evidence room.
By the time emergency crews contained it, the station’s security system had failed, three officers had been injured, and Grace Hale had disappeared.
So had Adrian Vale.
Michael and Daniel remained in custody.
Claire was moved to a secure interview room on the second floor while Detective Ruiz coordinated the search.
At dawn, Ruiz returned with soot on her face and anger in her eyes.
“Someone planned this,” she said.
Claire stood by the window.
“Was the evidence destroyed?”
“Some of it.”
“The medical form?”
“We scanned it before the fire.”
“The phones?”
“Adrian’s primary phone was destroyed. The second phone is missing.”
Claire turned.
“Missing?”
“So is the photograph found in his pocket.”
“The one of me at the clinic?”
“Yes.”
Claire thought of the figure in the police uniform.
“I saw the person who opened Grace’s cell.”
“Could you identify them?”
“Their face was covered.”
“Height?”
“About six feet.”
“Build?”
“Medium. Maybe male, but I’m not certain.”
Ruiz wrote it down.
“Anything else?”
Claire closed her eyes, replaying the moment.
“The person walked like they knew where every camera was.”
“That’s not unusual for someone familiar with police procedure.”
“They wore a ring.”
Ruiz stopped writing.
“What kind?”
“A black ring. Flat on top. There was a silver symbol.”
“What symbol?”
Claire drew it on a piece of paper.
A circle divided by three vertical lines.
Ruiz stared at it.
“Have you seen that before?”
“No.”
Ruiz folded the drawing and placed it in her pocket.
Claire noticed the movement.
“You recognize it.”
“I recognize the need not to discuss it in an unsecured building.”
Claire studied her.
“Who are these people?”
Ruiz looked toward the door before answering.
“I don’t know yet.”
“That isn’t true.”
“It is the safest answer I can give you.”
“Safe for whom?”
Ruiz’s expression softened.
“For you.”
Claire laughed bitterly.
“My husband helped forge my medical consent. My mother-in-law stole my money and escaped from police custody. Someone photographed me at a clinic, and now you’re telling me that silence will keep me safe?”
“I’m telling you that whoever organized this has resources inside financial institutions, private medical facilities, and possibly law enforcement.”
“Then nowhere is safe.”
Ruiz did not disagree.
A knock came at the door.
An officer entered.
“Daniel Hale wants to speak with his wife.”
Claire immediately said, “No.”
The officer nodded and started to leave.
Ruiz stopped him.
“What did he say?”
“That he knows where Grace is going.”
Claire looked at Ruiz.
Five minutes later, Claire sat across from Daniel in a small visitation room separated by reinforced glass.
He wore a gray detention shirt. His hair was disheveled. A dark bruise had formed near his jaw.
Claire picked up the telephone.
Daniel did the same.
“Where is she?”
His lips trembled.
“I need you to listen before you decide what I am.”
“I’ve already decided.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“You lied about the clinic.”
“Yes.”
“You had copies of my identity documents.”
“They were planted.”
“You knew someone took genetic material from me.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Claire gripped the receiver.
“What did they take?”
“Eggs.”
The word seemed too small for the violence it described.
Claire stared at him.
“How?”
“The blood work was a cover. They sedated you.”
“I wasn’t unconscious.”
“You were for twenty-three minutes.”
Claire remembered lying on an examination table. She remembered a nurse saying the dizziness was normal.
Then nothing.
When she woke, Daniel had been sitting beside her with a glass of water.
She had trusted him.
“Why?” she whispered.
Daniel leaned closer to the glass.
“My mother said you had agreed. She showed me signed forms.”
“You believed her?”
“At first.”
“And after you realized the signature was forged?”
“I confronted her.”
“When?”
“Four months ago.”
“You stayed silent for four months.”
“She threatened you.”
Claire laughed.
“She was already violating me.”
“She said if I exposed the program, you would disappear.”
“So you protected me by continuing to lie?”
“I was trying to learn enough to stop it.”
“You were promoted during that time.”
Daniel looked down.
Claire’s disgust deepened.
“That was your reward.”
“No.”
“Then what was it?”
“Access.”
“To what?”
“The private investment office. The medical payments. The offshore accounts.”
Claire remembered Adrian’s position.
“Did Adrian help you?”
“He said he would.”
“Was he sleeping with your mother?”
Daniel’s face tightened.
“I found out two weeks ago.”
“And you did nothing.”
“I needed him. He was copying files.”
“Where are they?”
“He hid them in the Range Rover.”
“The stack tied with blue ribbon?”
“Yes.”
“Someone took them.”
Daniel’s face went pale.
“Then Grace knows.”
“Knows what?”
“That Adrian betrayed her.”
Claire leaned closer.
“Where is she going?”
Daniel glanced toward the guard outside the room.
“There’s an old Hale property near Blackwood Lake. My grandfather built a hunting lodge there, but it was never used for hunting.”
“What was it used for?”
“Meetings.”
“With whom?”
“I don’t know their names.”
“Try.”
Daniel swallowed.
“Doctors. Judges. Bankers. People from the state adoption board. My mother called them custodians.”
Claire remembered the symbol on the ring.
“What were they protecting?”
Daniel looked directly at her.
“A project that began before I was born.”
“Marrow Genesis?”
“Yes.”
“Was my mother part of it?”
“I think so.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire struck the glass with the flat of her hand.
“Stop saying you don’t know!”
The guard stepped forward, but Ruiz raised a hand from the observation corner.
Daniel’s eyes filled with tears.
“I found your birth certificate in the private archive.”
Claire went still.
“My birth certificate is in my safe.”
“The real one isn’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The certificate you have was issued eleven months after you were born.”
Claire shook her head.
“No.”
“It lists your mother, but not the original hospital.”
“I was born at Saint Anne’s.”
“Saint Anne’s maternity ward was closed that year.”
Claire felt pressure building behind her eyes.
Daniel continued.
“There was another document attached. A transfer record.”
“What transfer?”
“A child transfer.”
Claire could barely speak.
“Whose child?”
Daniel’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“You.”
Ruiz stepped closer.
“Where is the document?”
Daniel looked toward her.
“In the Blackwood lodge.”
“How do you know Grace is going there?”
“Because if the copied files are missing, she’ll destroy the originals.”
Ruiz pulled out her phone and began issuing orders.
Claire remained seated.
Daniel pressed his palm against the glass.
“Claire.”
She looked at his hand but did not raise hers.
“You said Adrian claimed the clinic wasn’t about a baby,” she said.
“It wasn’t.”
“Then why take my eggs?”
Daniel hesitated.
Claire saw it.
“There’s more.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“They weren’t planning to create your child.”
Claire felt sick.
“What were they planning?”
Daniel looked over his shoulder.
The guard stood several feet away. Ruiz was speaking urgently near the door.
Daniel leaned closer to the glass.
“They were trying to recreate someone.”
Before Claire could ask who, the visitation room lights went out.
A sharp crack sounded from the hallway.
The glass beside Daniel’s head shattered.
He fell backward.
Claire screamed.
The guard drew his weapon.
Another shot struck the door.
Detective Ruiz pulled Claire to the floor.
“Stay down!”
Smoke burst from a canister in the corridor.
Through the chaos, Claire saw a figure move past the broken window.
The same black ring glinted on the person’s hand.
Daniel lay motionless on the floor.
Blood spread beneath his shoulder.
Claire crawled toward the fractured glass.
“Daniel!”
His eyes opened.
He struggled to lift his head.
The masked figure stopped in the doorway behind him.
A gun pointed downward.
Daniel looked at Claire through the broken partition.
His lips moved.
“Your mother is alive.”
May you like
The gun fired.
The room went silent.
