For a moment, Patricia simply stared at Claire.
Then she laughed.
It was brief and brittle, an instinctive sound produced before she had decided what expression to wear.
"That's ridiculous."
Detective Cole remained still.
Patricia looked from him to Claire. "If her signature is there, she signed it."
"I didn't."
"You must have forgotten."
Claire almost admired the speed with which Patricia found an explanation.
Almost.
"You think I forgot authorizing another woman to carry my embryo?"
Patricia's face hardened. "Don't make this ugly."
The sentence landed differently than Patricia intended.
Claire remembered hearing variations of it throughout her marriage. Don't make Christmas awkward. Don't upset Ryan. Don't turn this into something bigger.
Ugly, in the Parker family, usually meant visible.
Cole gestured toward an empty chair. "Mrs. Parker, you may want to sit down."
"I certainly will not."
He opened the evidence envelope.
The first document he removed was a photocopy of the transfer authorization.
Claire had seen it often enough that she could picture it with her eyes closed.
Patient names.
Storage identification.
Embryo information.
Consent language.
And at the bottom, two signatures.
Ryan's was genuine.
Hers was not.
Cole placed another document beside it.
"This is a preliminary comparison requested during the investigation."
Patricia glanced toward Claire. "Investigation?"
"Yes."
"I thought this was some custody dispute."
"Nobody said that."
Patricia looked suddenly furious with herself.
Claire noticed.
Cole noticed too.
He tapped the signature.
"Whoever completed this made a respectable attempt at copying Mrs. Bennett's handwriting."
Patricia said nothing.
"The capital C is similar. So is the underline."
Claire could still remember the first time Angela Morris, her attorney, showed her the enlarged comparison.
At first glance, the signatures looked nearly identical.
That frightened Claire more than a crude forgery would have.
A stranger might imitate a name.
This had been done by someone who knew how she signed hers.
Cole placed a genuine clinic document beside the disputed one.
"There is one obvious discrepancy."
Patricia looked despite herself.
"Mrs. Bennett uses her middle initial on Westbridge documents."
Claire's full clinic signature had always been Claire M. Bennett.
Years earlier, during their first IVF cycle, two records belonging to patients with similar names had nearly been confused. From then onward, staff had instructed Claire to include her middle initial on every authorization.
She had done so automatically.
The forged signature simply read Claire Bennett.
Patricia's gaze remained on the papers.
Claire watched the pulse flutter at the base of her throat.
"People change their signatures."
"Certainly," Cole said.
Patricia seemed relieved.
"Which is why that isn't the only evidence."
The relief vanished.
Cole withdrew another sheet.
Claire recognized the image before Patricia did.
A parking lot.
A timestamp.
Several vehicles.
Then Patricia saw the silver Lexus.
Her Lexus.
Cole laid the photograph flat.
"The transfer occurred at 9:42 a.m. According to the clinic's archived security footage, this vehicle entered the parking lot shortly after nine."
Patricia's voice became quieter.
"Lots of people drive silver cars."
Cole read the license plate aloud.
Patricia stopped speaking.
Claire felt strangely detached.
She had imagined this confrontation repeatedly since the photograph was discovered. In those imagined versions she was furious, demanding answers.
Reality was quieter.
Patricia's lies were becoming evidence one piece at a time.
Cole asked, "Did you drive Megan Ellis here on the morning of the embryo transfer?"
"No."
The answer came instantly.
Cole looked at her.
Patricia lifted her chin.
"No. I did not."
He reached into the envelope again.
"Then perhaps you can explain why your vehicle remained here for two hours and fourteen minutes."
"I might have had an appointment."
"Did you?"
"I don't remember every appointment I had a year ago."
"Westbridge is a fertility clinic."
Patricia folded her arms. "Women have medical appointments."
"Of course."
The calmness in Cole's voice seemed to bother her more than accusation would have.
Claire remembered Ryan once telling her about Andrew Cole. Ryan's business partner had been investigated in an insurance fraud case several years earlier, and Cole had interviewed everyone connected with the company.
Patricia had despised him afterward.
She had called him intrusive.
Now Claire understood why.
He had the patience to let silence do work for him.
Patricia lasted eleven seconds.
"I may have driven Megan somewhere."
Cole said nothing.
"She didn't like driving after procedures."
"What procedure?"
Patricia's eyes shifted.
Claire's heartbeat changed.
It was subtle, but she felt it.
Patricia had known.
Not merely afterward.
Before.
Cole repeated the question.
"What procedure, Mrs. Parker?"
"I don't remember."
"Was it an embryo transfer?"
"I told you I don't remember."
"Did you know Ryan still had embryos stored at this clinic?"
Patricia snapped, "Of course I knew they had embryos here."
Silence.
The words seemed to remain suspended between them.
Patricia realized what she had said.
Claire stared at her.
Not Ryan had embryos.
They.
Claire and Ryan.
Patricia's face changed.
Claire had spent months wondering whether Ryan acted alone. He could be selfish, secretive, and spectacularly skilled at justifying whatever he wanted.
Patricia was different.
She planned.
During the divorce, Patricia knew which attorney Ryan should hire before Claire even realized he intended to file.
She had advised him about bank accounts.
She had begun inviting Megan to family gatherings while Claire was still legally Ryan's wife.
And now Claire remembered something else.
Three weeks before Ryan filed for divorce, Patricia had asked an oddly specific question over dinner.
What happens to frozen embryos when people separate?
Claire had been too exhausted to recognize the significance.
She recognized it now.
"You knew," Claire said.
Patricia looked at her.
"You knew exactly what they were doing."
"Claire—"
"Don't."
The word came out softly.
That made Patricia stop.
Claire stepped toward the photograph.
"You drove Megan here."
"I helped someone who needed transportation."
"For a transfer using my embryo."
Patricia's jaw tightened.
"You don't know what Ryan told me."
"No. But I'm beginning to."
A door opened near reception.
A man in a white coat emerged, followed by a woman holding a tablet.
Dr. Samuel Reed, the clinic's medical director, looked older than he had during Claire's fertility treatments. The easy warmth she remembered had been replaced by something careful and grave.
"Ms. Bennett."
"Dr. Reed."
His eyes moved to Cole and Patricia.
"We should continue this somewhere private."
Patricia immediately seized on the suggestion.
"Yes. Finally. This spectacle is completely inappropriate."
Dr. Reed looked at her.
"I'm afraid privacy is not our primary concern anymore, Mrs. Parker."
Patricia stiffened.
"The clinic's legal department has been notified," he continued. "We've also suspended all access to the Bennett-Parker embryo storage account while the records are audited."
Claire felt her breath catch.
The remaining embryo.
Through all the chaos, that had been her greatest fear.
One embryo still remained in storage.
At least, according to the records she possessed.
"What about the other embryo?" Claire asked.
Dr. Reed looked directly at her.
"It is secure."
Some tension left Claire's shoulders.
For now.
Patricia seemed to notice the exchange.
"There is another one?"
Claire turned toward her.
Patricia's expression gave her away before she could hide it.
Surprise.
Real surprise.
Claire stared at her.
Patricia had known about the transfer.
But perhaps she had not known everything.
That mattered.
Dr. Reed gestured toward the corridor.
"Please."
Patricia hesitated, then leaned toward Claire.
"Whatever mistakes were made, Lily is Ryan's child."
Claire looked at her.
The name hurt differently now.
Lily.
A nine-month-old girl Claire had never held.
A child whose photographs she had forced herself not to examine.
A child who might carry her mother's dimple, her grandfather's eyes, some tiny biological inheritance no divorce decree could erase.
Patricia mistook Claire's silence for weakness.
"Think carefully about what you're doing," she whispered. "That baby has a family."
Claire's anger arrived then.
Not hot.
Not wild.
Clean.
"Yes," she said. "She does."
Patricia's eyes narrowed.
Claire held her gaze.
"And whether you like it or not, Patricia, I'm part of it."
For the first time that morning, Patricia looked genuinely frightened.
