Chapter 12 - THE GRANDMOTHER WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
“Do not give her Oliver.”
“I won’t.”
“Where is Alan?”
Emma paused.
“He let her inside.”
Claire felt betrayed all over again.
“Listen to me. Take Oliver and go into the bathroom. Lock the door.”
“Mom—”
“Now.”
Claire heard movement.
A woman’s voice in the background.
“Emma?”
Claire recognized it instantly.
Her mother.
Older.
But unmistakable.
“Emma, sweetheart, where are you?”
Emma ran.
A door slammed.
Lock clicked.
Oliver began crying.
Claire shouted into the phone.
“Emma, stay with me.”
“I am.”
“Is there a window?”
“Small one.”
“Can you open it?”
“I think so.”
Margaret drove at reckless speed toward the interstate.
They were eleven hours away.
Claire felt helpless.
Then another voice entered the call.
Alan.
“Claire.”
“You let her into the house?”
“She had the code.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Get my daughter out!”
“I’m trying.”
A crash sounded.
Emma screamed.
The bathroom door shook.
Eleanor spoke from outside.
“Emma, darling, your mother doesn’t understand.”
Emma cried.
Claire shouted, “Mom!”
Silence.
Then Eleanor laughed softly.
“Claire.”
Hearing her mother say her name after twelve years felt surreal.
“What are you doing?”
“Saving your son.”
“He doesn’t need saving.”
“He does from Daniel.”
“Daniel is alive.”
“I know.”
Claire stopped.
Of course she knew.
“You knew his death was fake.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Before it happened.”
Claire felt rage.
“You watched me grieve.”
“It was necessary.”
“You are all monsters.”
Eleanor’s voice hardened.
“Daniel brought this into our family.”
“No. Apparently your father did.”
Silence.
That landed.
“So you know about the Vale trust.”
“I know Oliver was engineered.”
Eleanor sighed.
“He wasn’t engineered.”
“What would you call switching embryos?”
“A correction.”
Claire nearly dropped the phone.
Emma heard it too.
The ten-year-old stopped crying.
“What does that mean?” Claire asked.
“It means the embryo Daniel wanted transferred was never viable.”
Claire’s heart pounded.
“He lied?”
“The clinic did.”
“Whose embryo is Oliver?”
Eleanor did not answer.
“Mom.”
Nothing.
“WHOSE CHILD DID I CARRY?”
Eleanor whispered:
“Mine.”
Claire stopped breathing.
Margaret nearly drove off the road.
“What?”
Eleanor continued calmly.
“Not literally mine, Claire. Genetically, Oliver is your son.”
Claire’s head spun.
“Then Daniel was wrong.”
“He was wrong about one thing.”
“What?”
“Oliver is his child.”
Claire stared ahead.
“Then why did Daniel say he wasn’t?”
“Because the sample labeled as Daniel Whitmore’s DNA did not match Oliver.”
Claire understood slowly.
Daniel Whitmore’s DNA.
Not Daniel Mercer’s.
“What are you saying?”
“Your husband’s medical records were built from another man.”
Northstar.
Identity reconstruction.
Daniel Whitmore was a manufactured identity.
If the fertility clinic compared Oliver against medical samples stored under Whitmore…
They might have been comparing him to a stranger.
Eleanor continued.
“Oliver is biologically Daniel Mercer’s son.”
Claire closed her eyes.
Relief struck first.
Then fear.
“Why do you want him?”
“Because he’s the only child carrying both lines.”
Mercer.
Vale.
Northstar’s founder.
And the trust’s heir.
A child connecting two families that had built the entire system.
Eleanor’s voice softened.
“Your son can destroy Northstar.”
“How?”
“He can also control it.”
A loud crash came through Emma’s phone.
The bathroom door splintered.
Emma screamed.
Then another sound.
A gunshot.
May you like
Claire shouted her daughter’s name.
The call went silent.
