The second recording lasted four minutes and eleven seconds.
I watched every second twice.
A transparent neonatal enclosure occupied the center of the room.
It was not an ordinary incubator.
Tubes ran through ports along its sides. Monitors surrounded it. A clear fluid chamber sat beneath a bank of machines I did not recognize.
Inside lay a tiny infant.
Alive.
Her chest moved rapidly.
One hand opened and closed against the blanket.
A nurse entered.
Then Adrian Vale.
He leaned over the enclosure.
“Weight?”
“Eight hundred fourteen grams.”
“Respiratory?”
“Improving.”
“Neurological response?”
“Within expected parameters.”
He touched the enclosure with two fingers.
The tenderness of the gesture made me hate him.
Then someone else entered.
Graham.
I stopped the video.
“No.”
He stood behind me.
His face collapsed.
“No.”
I turned.
“You were there.”
“I don’t remember this.”
“You are standing beside her.”
“I never saw a baby.”
I shoved the tablet toward him.
“That is you.”
He stared at the frozen frame.
“I was at Hawthorne more than once.”
“When?”
“Years before Noah.”
“During my pregnancy?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Try harder.”
Daniel said, “Let the recording continue.”
I pressed play.
Recorded Graham walked toward the enclosure.
Vale said something we could not hear.
Graham leaned closer.
His expression changed.
“What happened to her?”
Vale answered, “Complications were expected.”
“Whose child is she?”
“Unknown.”
“Then why did Ward ask me here?”
Vale looked toward the camera.
“Because he wants you to name her.”
Recorded Graham laughed.
“That’s insane.”
“He believes attachment metrics may be relevant.”
“I’m not naming a research subject.”
“She is not a research subject.”
Vale’s voice hardened.
“She is a child.”
The Graham beside me whispered, “I remember.”
I kept watching.
Recorded Graham looked through the transparent wall.
The infant moved.
He placed his palm against the enclosure.
“What do the nurses call her?”
“C.”
“That’s not a name.”
“No.”
A long pause.
Then Graham said:
“Claire.”
The recording ended.
I turned slowly.
“Claire.”
His eyes closed.
“I had forgotten.”
“How do you forget naming a baby?”
“I thought she died.”
“When?”
“That night.”
“Why were you there?”
“Ward called me.”
“Why?”
“He said there had been a breakthrough.”
“And you went.”
“Yes.”
“While I was pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“While I was carrying that child.”
“I didn’t know.”
“But when you saw her?”
“I didn’t know she came from you.”
“Did you ask?”
“Yes.”
“Vale said unknown.”
“Did you believe him?”
“At the time.”
I stared at him.
“What happened after you named her?”
“Charles told me the infant had survived an experimental gestation process.”
“Human.”
“Yes.”
“And that didn’t send you to police?”
“He told me the biological material had been legally donated.”
“Did you believe that?”
Graham’s silence lasted too long.
“No.”
The word barely carried.
“Then why didn’t you report it?”
“Because Charles owned half my company.”
There it was.
Money again.
Not confusion.
Not fear for a child.
Money.
“I told myself there had been consent somewhere.”
“Because that was convenient.”
“Yes.”
“Did you see Claire again?”
“No.”
“Did you ask what happened?”
“Once.”
“And?”
“Vale said she died from respiratory failure.”
“When?”
“A few weeks later.”
“Did you see a death certificate?”
“No.”
“Body?”
“No.”
“Medical record?”
“No.”
I looked at Daniel.
“Find Claire.”
“We’re trying.”
“Don’t call her C.”
“I won’t.”
Evelyn sat with both hands clasped tightly.
“If she was created from Isabelle’s pregnancy, whose embryo was she?”
Nobody knew.
That question led us back to the transfer.
Three embryos.
One from me and Graham.
One from Evelyn and Graham.
A third whose origin Graham claimed not to know.
Three gestations.
Ruby was mine.
Sophie was Evelyn’s.
Claire could only have come from the third.
“Find the third embryo identifier.”
Daniel nodded.
“The server may have it.”
Dr. Patel joined us after reviewing the recording.
She looked disturbed.
“Whatever that system was, I need to caution everyone against assuming it functioned the way Charles Ward claimed.”
“But the infant existed.”
“Yes.”
“Six months after the procedure.”
“Yes.”
“So she survived.”
“To that point.”
“Could she still be alive?”
Dr. Patel paused.
“Medically? If she transitioned successfully to standard neonatal care, yes.”
My heart beat harder.
“She would be ten.”
“Approximately.”
The same age as Sophie and Ruby.
Three embryos.
Three girls.
Not triplets in the ordinary sense.
But three lives had begun inside me.
One had been removed without consent.
“What genetic relationship could Claire have to Sophie?”
“We need the embryo record.”
“And if she shares Evelyn or Graham?”
“She could be relevant as a donor.”
Again.
Every secret kept circling back to Sophie’s failing marrow.
Daniel’s phone buzzed.
He checked it.
“The investigators found the transfer manifest.”
We crowded around his screen.
Embryo A:
HAYES-I/HAYES-G.
Embryo B:
WARD-E/HAYES-G.
Embryo C:
WARD-E/HAYES-G.
Evelyn gasped.
“Two of mine.”
Graham stared.
“You authorized two?”
“No.”
Her voice rose.
“I authorized none.”
I read the identifiers again.
Sophie and Claire were biological full sisters.
So was Noah.
“Claire could match.”
Dr. Patel nodded.
“Yes.”
“If she’s alive.”
“Yes.”
Evelyn suddenly stood.
“My father knows.”
“Knows what?”
“Whether Claire survived.”
“Then we ask him.”
Charles Ward had been transferred to a police interview facility.
Daniel arranged the conversation through investigators.
I was not permitted in the interview room.
I watched through video from the hospital legal office.
Charles sat at a metal table.
He looked annoyed rather than frightened.
An investigator named Detective Elena Ruiz sat across from him.
She placed a photograph from the Hawthorne recording on the table.
“Who is this infant?”
Charles looked once.
“No idea.”
“She was identified as C.”
“Then apparently you know more than I do.”
Ruiz placed another image down.
Charles standing inside the Hawthorne room.
His expression did not change.
“You were there.”
“Many people were.”
“Did this infant survive?”
“I want my attorney.”
“You already have one on the way.”
“Then we’re finished.”
Ruiz leaned back.
“A ten-year-old girl with leukemia may die if we cannot identify genetically compatible relatives.”
Charles’s eyes flickered.
Tiny.
But visible.
Ruiz noticed.
“So you know who Sophie is.”
“No.”
“You know enough to react.”
Charles said nothing.
Ruiz placed Sophie’s photograph on the table.
He looked away.
That reaction was stronger.
“Where is Claire?”
His head snapped back.
For the first time, the name affected him.
Ruiz leaned forward.
“So she lived.”
Charles smiled.
“You’re making assumptions.”
“Where is she?”
“I have nothing further to say.”
Ruiz gathered the photographs.
Charles spoke before she reached the door.
“Ask Adrian.”
The video ended.
Vale was still being questioned at the warehouse.
Police brought him to the hospital because investigators believed his medical knowledge might be needed to interpret the files.
I met him in a secured consultation room.
Ten years had passed since he had touched my body while I was unconscious.
I wanted to make him look at me.
He did.
“I’m sorry.”
“Where is Claire?”
His eyes filled.
“I don’t know.”
“Did she die?”
“No.”
The answer struck the room.
“You lied to Graham.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To protect her.”
“Where did she go?”
“A nurse took her.”
“What nurse?”
“Angela Reed.”
Daniel wrote the name.
“Why?”
“Charles wanted Claire transferred into another protocol.”
“What protocol?”
Vale swallowed.
“Neurological development.”
Evelyn whispered, “Hawthorne.”
“Yes.”
“What were they going to do?”
“Long-term intervention studies.”
“Drugs?”
“Possibly.”
“Surgery?”
“Possibly.”
“On a baby?”
Vale looked down.
“I refused.”
I almost laughed.
“You refused.”
“Yes.”
“After removing her from my uterus.”
His face tightened.
“Yes.”
“After keeping her alive in an experimental gestation system.”
“Yes.”
“And suddenly you discovered ethics?”
“I had been discovering them too late for years.”
That was perhaps the most truthful thing he had said.
“What did Angela do?”
“She took Claire out during a transfer.”
“Kidnapped her?”
“Saved her.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I deliberately did not ask.”
“Did Angela know whose child she was?”
“She knew Evelyn was the genetic mother.”
“Did she know about me?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t she contact me?”
Vale looked toward Graham.
“Because Charles had already begun building a file on Isabelle.”
My skin went cold.
“What file?”
“Psychiatric concerns.”
Graham stared.
“That was years before the divorce.”
“Yes.”
I looked at him.
The custody case had not created the story that I was unstable.
It had inherited it.
Charles Ward had begun documenting me while my daughters were infants.
“Why?”
Vale answered quietly.
“In case Claire ever surfaced.”
The room became very still.
“If I found her?”
“You would claim her.”
“She was taken from my body.”
“I know.”
“So they needed me discredited.”
“Yes.”
Graham’s face had changed.
“You used that file.”
He looked at me.
“I didn’t know where it came from.”
“You gave it to Mercer.”
“My attorney received background material.”
“From whom?”
“An investigator.”
“Paid by?”
He stopped.
I knew.
“Ward.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You keep not knowing exactly enough to remain useful.”
Graham looked sick.
Daniel interrupted.
“Angela Reed. Find her.”
An investigator at the door nodded and left.
Vale leaned back.
“There’s something else.”
I stared at him.
“There always is.”
“Angela sent me one message after she disappeared.”
“When?”
“Nine years ago.”
“What did it say?”
He looked at me.
“Claire was alive.”
My heart hammered.
“And?”
“She had another name.”
“What name?”
Vale hesitated.
“Lily.”
“Lily what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where?”
“She only gave me one clue.”
“What?”
Vale looked toward the rain-darkened window.
“She said Lily was growing up where nobody would ever think to search for a child created by Charles Ward.”
I waited.
Vale swallowed.
“In a family connected to him.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 11: The Search for Claire Reached Charles Ward’s Own Family, Where a Ten-Year-Old Girl Had Been Raised Under a Dead Woman’s Identity
The Hospital Called After Two Years of Silence, and the First Thing They Asked Me Was Whether I Could Save Sophie
Part 10 of 20
