Chapter 7 - THE TEST
“No.”
Claire said it once.
Then again.
“No.”
Emma stared at her.
Oliver had fallen asleep against Claire’s chest.
Lieutenant Ramirez replayed the final five seconds.
Because Oliver isn’t mine.
The sentence did not change.
Claire stood so quickly her chair tipped backward.
“That’s impossible.”
Ramirez said nothing.
“I never cheated on Daniel.”
“I didn’t think you did.”
“I know who Oliver’s father is.”
Ramirez carefully asked, “Was the pregnancy conceived naturally?”
Claire stopped.
The room became very quiet.
Emma looked confused.
Claire closed her eyes.
Two years earlier, she and Daniel had started fertility treatment after several miscarriages.
They had frozen embryos.
The pregnancy with Oliver came after a transfer.
Daniel had been present.
He had held her hand.
The clinic had called it their last viable embryo.
Claire looked down at her son.
“Oh my God.”
Ramirez understood.
“The embryo.”
Claire nodded slowly.
“Daniel was saying the embryo wasn’t his.”
Emma whispered, “Does that mean Oliver isn’t my brother?”
Claire immediately grabbed her hand.
“No. He is your brother. Nothing changes that.”
“But Dad—”
“Daniel was your father. Oliver is my son. Families are more than laboratory reports.”
She believed the words.
She needed to.
Ramirez paced.
“What clinic?”
“Silver Ridge Reproductive Center.”
The lieutenant’s expression changed.
“What?”
“It closed last year.”
“Why?”
“Financial issues, supposedly.”
Ramirez opened her laptop.
“No. There was an investigation.”
Claire stared.
“For what?”
“Medical record irregularities.”
She searched local databases.
The findings were worse.
Silver Ridge’s laboratory director had disappeared fourteen months earlier.
Two embryologists had resigned suddenly.
One had died in what police described as a hiking accident.
The clinic’s owner had transferred millions to an offshore account.
Claire whispered, “Northstar.”
Ramirez nodded.
A knock came at the door.
Pike.
“We need to move Mrs. Whitmore.”
Ramirez didn’t open it.
“Why?”
“Security breach.”
“What kind?”
“Our transport manifest was accessed.”
Claire whispered, “By Hale?”
Pike did not answer.
Ramirez looked at Claire.
“Pack your things.”
“Where are we going?”
“Not with them.”
She opened a secondary door leading into a service corridor.
Emma grabbed her backpack.
Claire secured Oliver.
Before they left, she took Daniel’s brass key and slipped it into her bra.
Ramirez carried the memory card.
They moved through airport maintenance halls while Pike continued pounding on the interview-room door.
At the end of the corridor waited a plain airport police van.
Ramirez drove.
Emma asked from the back seat, “Where’s Margaret?”
Ramirez glanced in the mirror.
“Federal custody.”
Claire remembered Daniel’s note.
If Collins has reached you, listen before judging her.
“We need to find her.”
“That may not be possible.”
“Daniel wanted me to trust her.”
Ramirez took a sharp turn.
“He also apparently wanted you to avoid Victor Hale.”
Claire looked behind them.
A black SUV had pulled out of the airport exit.
It was following.
Ramirez saw it too.
“Hold on.”
She accelerated.
Emma gripped the seat.
Oliver woke and began crying.
Claire turned.
The black SUV was getting closer.
Then Emma pointed through the rear window.
“Mom.”
“What?”
“There are two.”
A second SUV appeared.
Ramirez reached for her radio.
Static.
She tried again.
Nothing.
The first vehicle pulled alongside.
The rear window lowered.
Claire expected a gun.
Instead, Margaret Collins leaned out.
Her wrists were still cuffed.
May you like
She screamed:
“FOLLOW ME IF YOU WANT YOUR HUSBAND BACK!”
