I read the final line again.
HAWTHORNE.
The word sat beneath the procedure entry like an answer designed to create a worse question.
My hand shook against Daniel’s laptop.
“What does ‘transfer destination for fetal tissue’ mean?”
Daniel did not answer immediately.
Neither did Evelyn.
Graham was still staring at the authorization bearing his name.
“I never signed this.”
“You’ve said that.”
“I mean it.”
I looked at him.
His face had lost the careful control I associated with every important moment of our marriage. There was no offended dignity now. No measured concern. He looked frightened in a way I had never seen, not even at the warehouse.
“Then who forged your signature?”
“Ward.”
“You know that?”
“I know he had samples.”
“What samples?”
“Signatures. Copies of identification. Corporate authorizations.”
Daniel looked up sharply.
“You gave Charles Ward signed blank documents?”
“Not blank medical forms.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Graham rubbed both hands across his face.
“When he invested in my first company, his attorneys had extensive signing authority for certain transactions.”
Daniel stared at him.
“You gave a man you now claim was conducting unauthorized reproductive research access to your legal signature.”
“I was twenty-eight.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“I know.”
I pushed the laptop toward Daniel.
“What happened to fetus C?”
“We don’t know.”
“The document says reduction.”
“Yes.”
“And transfer.”
“Yes.”
“How can there be a transfer after a reduction?”
Evelyn answered.
“Research tissue.”
I looked at her.
She swallowed.
“That would be the conventional interpretation.”
“Conventional.”
“Yes.”
“But Hawthorne wasn’t conventional.”
“No.”
A terrible possibility entered my mind.
“No.”
Nobody had said anything.
Still, I said it again.
“No.”
Graham understood.
“Isabelle, a fetus at twelve weeks cannot survive outside—”
“I know.”
My voice cracked.
“I know that.”
I stood and walked toward the window.
Seattle glittered wet and dark beyond the hospital glass.
Sophie was down the corridor.
Ruby was beside her.
Noah was being evaluated somewhere below us.
Mara was hundreds of miles away with Leah.
Children connected by people who had treated embryos as numbered assets and consent as an inconvenience.
I pressed my forehead against the cold glass.
“What exactly was transferred to Hawthorne?”
Daniel closed the laptop.
“We need the original record.”
“Then get it.”
“We will.”
“Tonight.”
“I’ll push.”
“No. Don’t push. Get it.”
He accepted the anger without reacting.
“I’ll contact the investigators.”
Evelyn’s phone rang.
She looked at the screen.
“Leah.”
She answered.
“What?”
We watched her expression change.
“When?”
A pause.
“Don’t touch anything.”
Another pause.
“No. Stay inside.”
She ended the call.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Someone broke into Leah’s storage unit.”
My stomach tightened.
“The records?”
“She moved the originals months ago.”
“Where?”
“She won’t tell me over the phone.”
Daniel was already calling someone.
Graham looked toward the corridor.
“Charles knows she sent copies.”
“He was in police custody when she sent them.”
Graham gave me a bleak look.
“You still think custody means he can’t make a phone call?”
Daniel stepped away, speaking quietly to investigators.
I looked at Evelyn.
“What else does Leah have?”
“Vale’s research notebooks. Consent records. old video files.”
“Video?”
“She said Hawthorne recorded procedures.”
The room went silent.
“What procedures?”
“I don’t know.”
Graham whispered, “I do.”
I turned.
He was looking at the floor.
“Hawthorne had a surgical suite.”
“For children?”
“For research participants.”
“They were children.”
“Yes.”
“What happened there?”
“Biopsies. imaging under sedation. lumbar punctures.”
“Anything involving pregnant women?”
“I never saw one.”
“Did you know the facility received tissue from my pregnancy?”
“No.”
I believed that too.
It was becoming unbearable to discover that Graham could be guilty of so much and still not be guilty of everything.
Daniel returned.
“Police are sending officers to Leah.”
“Good.”
“There’s more. Investigators searched the warehouse office after we left.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did they find?”
“A server.”
Evelyn stepped forward.
“Ward’s?”
“Possibly Vale’s. They’re cloning the drives.”
“Can they search them?”
“They have a warrant based on the kidnapping investigation.”
Graham said, “Charles will argue Noah wasn’t kidnapped.”
“Noah was locked inside.”
“His legal guardianship is complicated.”
Daniel looked tired.
“So is homicide. We still investigate bodies.”
The word homicide made me flinch.
Daniel noticed.
“I’m not saying that happened.”
“But somebody recorded a fetal reduction under a forged authorization.”
“Yes.”
“And sent the tissue to Hawthorne.”
“Yes.”
“So find out what they did with it.”
My phone rang.
Dr. Whitman.
I answered immediately.
“Sophie?”
“Stable. But I need you upstairs.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing acute. We have additional genetic results.”
I was already moving.
We gathered in a small conference room beside Sophie’s unit.
Dr. Whitman stood with a genetic counselor named Dr. Lena Patel.
Noah’s social worker sat beside him.
He looked exhausted.
Evelyn took the chair nearest him.
I sat across from Dr. Patel.
“Tell me.”
She placed several pages on the table.
“We compared the available profiles for Sophie, Noah, Ruby, Graham, Isabelle, and Evelyn.”
“And?”
“The relationships confirm what we’ve established. Sophie and Noah share both biological parents: Graham and Evelyn.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“Noah is definitely her full brother?”
“Yes.”
“And Mara?”
“We don’t have her sample.”
“Yet.”
Dr. Patel nodded.
“Ruby is the biological child of Isabelle and Graham.”
I reached for Ruby’s hand beneath the table.
She squeezed once.
Then Dr. Patel looked at me.
“The unusual marrow-associated variant appears in Sophie and Noah.”
“From which parent?”
“Evelyn.”
Evelyn went pale.
“Me?”
“You carry one component.”
“One?”
Dr. Patel exchanged a glance with Dr. Whitman.
“There is a second modification.”
The word bothered me immediately.
“Modification?”
“It does not appear to be a naturally inherited variant.”
Silence.
Graham leaned forward.
“What are you saying?”
Dr. Patel chose her words carefully.
“We found evidence consistent with laboratory manipulation at an embryonic stage.”
Evelyn stood so abruptly her chair scraped backward.
“No.”
“Sit down,” Dr. Whitman said.
“No. My father told me they were screening embryos, not altering them.”
Noah stared at her.
“What does altering mean?”
Evelyn looked at him and could not answer.
Dr. Patel did.
“It means someone may have changed a tiny part of the biological instructions you were born with.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know.”
Noah’s voice became small.
“Is that why Sophie is sick?”
Dr. Patel paused.
“It might have contributed.”
Evelyn turned away and covered her mouth.
Graham looked sick.
“Vale said they never crossed that line.”
“You knew they were considering it?”
“He talked about it.”
“When?”
“Before Isabelle and I married.”
I stared at him.
“You knew they wanted to genetically alter embryos.”
“I knew Ward funded experimental work.”
“And you still let his clinic treat me.”
“I thought the experimental program had ended.”
“Why?”
“Vale told me.”
I laughed without humor.
“Apparently Adrian Vale’s word was enough whenever it allowed you to keep getting what you wanted.”
Dr. Whitman interrupted.
“We need to focus on Sophie.”
I forced myself to sit.
“What does this mean for transplant?”
“We need caution. Noah’s matching profile is strong, but if he carries the same potentially harmful alteration, using his marrow could create additional risks.”
“So he might not be able to donate.”
“Correct.”
Ruby looked at me.
“What about me?”
Dr. Whitman’s expression softened.
“You are not a close enough match.”
Ruby looked devastated.
I squeezed her hand.
“This is not something you failed.”
“But Mara might match?”
“If Mara is biologically related to Sophie, possibly.”
Evelyn whispered, “She’s mine.”
Everyone turned.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“E-9.”
She sat slowly.
“That embryo was one of mine and Graham’s.”
Graham frowned.
“You said you recognized the code.”
“I didn’t tell you everything.”
“Apparently nobody does.”
Evelyn ignored him.
“E-9 was the earliest embryo Charles considered successful.”
“Successful how?”
Her eyes moved toward Noah.
“The alteration.”
Noah looked frightened.
Dr. Patel said, “If Mara came from an earlier version of the same experiment, her genetic profile could be extremely important.”
“For Sophie?”
“Yes.”
“And for understanding what happened.”
“Yes.”
My phone buzzed.
Daniel.
He stood outside the room when I opened the door.
His face told me he had found something.
“What?”
“The investigators accessed part of the warehouse server.”
“And?”
“There’s a directory with your name.”
My skin went cold.
“Mine?”
“ISABELLE_HAYES.”
“Open it.”
“They did.”
He held out a tablet.
The directory contained dates.
Medical records.
Scanned signatures.
Photographs of me entering Bright Horizons.
Medication schedules.
Ultrasounds.
Someone had documented my pregnancy like an experiment.
Then I saw a video file.
The date matched the night I had been hospitalized for bleeding.
“Play it.”
Daniel hesitated.
“Isabelle.”
“Play it.”
The recording began inside a medical room.
The angle came from a ceiling camera.
I recognized myself immediately.
I lay unconscious on a narrow bed.
Dr. Vale stood beside me.
Another physician adjusted an ultrasound machine.
Charles Ward entered.
Even twelve years younger, he was unmistakable.
There was no audio for several seconds.
Then sound appeared.
Vale said, “The third gestation remains viable.”
Charles answered, “That is precisely the problem.”
My hand went numb around the tablet.
Vale glanced toward my unconscious body.
“She did not consent to reduction.”
“She consented to treatment.”
“Not this.”
Charles stepped closer.
“We cannot allow C to continue.”
“Why?”
“Because C is not part of the approved cohort.”
My breath stopped.
Vale said, “Then leave it alone.”
“No.”
“What are you asking me to do?”
Charles looked toward the camera.
For one second, it felt as though he were looking directly at me across ten years.
“Recover it.”
Vale stared at him.
“At twelve weeks?”
“The protocol is ready.”
“That has never been done.”
Charles’s voice remained calm.
“Then tonight will be the first.”
The recording ended.
I stared at the black screen.
Daniel said my name.
I barely heard him.
“What protocol?”
“We don’t know.”
I looked at Graham.
He had followed us into the corridor.
His face was gray.
“You knew Hawthorne had a surgical suite.”
“Yes.”
“What protocol could recover a twelve-week fetus?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
“I don’t know.”
Evelyn appeared behind him.
She had heard enough.
Her expression had changed from grief to horror.
“I do.”
We turned.
“My father funded an artificial gestation project.”
Nobody spoke.
Evelyn’s voice shook.
“It was supposed to be animal research.”
I stared at her.
“Supposed to be?”
“Yes.”
“How far had it gone?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could they have kept a twelve-week human fetus alive?”
She looked at the dark tablet screen.
Then at me.
“For a while.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could it reach birth?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
“Could it?”
“I said no.”
“You’re lying.”
Her eyes filled.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then looked directly at me.
“They found another video.”
“What does it show?”
His face tightened.
“A neonatal room at Hawthorne.”
My knees weakened.
“What date?”
“Six months after the procedure.”
“That’s too early.”
“I know.”
“What’s in the room?”
Daniel swallowed.
“A premature infant.”
I could not speak.
He continued.
“The file label is C.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: The Infant Called C Survived Long Enough to Be Given a Name, and the Person Who Chose It Had Been Living Beside Me
The Hospital Called After Two Years of Silence, and the First Thing They Asked Me Was Whether I Could Save Sophie
Part 9 of 20
