Chapter 4 - Six Visits and One Missing Hour
I opened the door before anyone could stop me.
Damon entered.
His eyes found Claire.
Then Owen.
Then his mother.
Finally me.
“This looks dramatic.”
“Give me the envelope.”
He did.
I didn't open it.
“Did you sleep with Claire?”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
Perhaps lying had finally exhausted him.
“How many times?”
“Does the number matter?”
“To me.”
“Six.”
Six security entries.
Each visit.
Each betrayal.
I looked at Claire.
She nodded.
Owen closed his eyes.
“Why did you test my baby?”
Damon stared at Victoria.
“She told you.”
“Answer me.”
“Because I needed to know.”
“You could have asked me.”
“And what would you have said?”
“The truth.”
He laughed bitterly.
“You don't know the truth.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
He pointed toward Victoria.
“Ask her.”
His mother didn't move.
Damon looked at me again.
“The morning you supposedly had routine testing two years ago, there was a procedure.”
“I remember bloodwork.”
“You were sedated.”
A memory flashed.
Drowsiness.
Damon holding my hand.
A nurse saying I might sleep for an hour.
I had been told they needed an imaging study.
“What procedure?”
Victoria whispered, “Damon.”
“No. We're finished protecting everybody.”
He faced me.
“An embryo transfer.”
The room disappeared.
“What?”
“You weren't pregnant afterward. It failed.”
“I never agreed to IVF.”
“I know.”
My stomach twisted.
Victoria stood.
“I didn't authorize that.”
Damon laughed.
“Your clinic did.”
“My clinic?”
“Your company owned the fertility center through a subsidiary.”
Victoria stared at him.
Damon continued.
“Nathan found the archived paperwork six months ago.”
Dr. Hale stood near the door, visibly uncomfortable.
I turned to him.
“Is this true?”
“Yes.”
“You performed it?”
“No. Another physician did. I altered records afterward.”
“Why?”
“Damon paid me.”
At least someone finally spoke without pretending nobility.
I looked at Damon.
“Why would anyone transfer an embryo without my consent?”
“That’s the question I've been trying to answer.”
“And sleeping with Claire helped?”
His jaw tightened.
“No.”
“Good. At least we agree.”
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a DNA report.
Probability of paternity: 0%.
My fingers trembled.
Damon watched me.
“This isn't my child.”
My hand covered my belly.
Claire whispered, “Evelyn…”
I looked at the report again.
“My obstetrician said she was conceived naturally.”
“She probably was.”
“Then how—”
Damon pointed toward the report.
“Because the DNA tested wasn't yours.”
Victoria interrupted.
“We already discovered the sample was substituted.”
Damon looked genuinely surprised.
“What?”
For the first time, his certainty cracked.
Nathan stepped forward.
“I didn't know that.”
“Who substituted it?” I asked.
No answer.
Owen picked up the report.
“There's a specimen ID.”
Nathan stared at it.
Then went pale.
“What?”
“That number.”
“What about it?”
“I've seen it before.”
“Where?”
Nathan looked toward Victoria.
“On the embryo-transfer archive.”
Damon snatched the report.
“That makes no sense.”
Nathan shook his head.
“The laboratory didn't test Evelyn’s current pregnancy.”
“Then what did it test?”
“The embryo from two years ago.”
Silence.
The embryo that had supposedly failed.
Damon sat down.
“How could they have fetal DNA from an embryo that never implanted?”
Nathan looked terrified.
“They couldn't.”
Victoria gripped the counter.
I understood before anyone said it.
“That embryo became a baby.”
Nathan nodded.
“Somewhere.”
The room erupted.
Damon demanded records.
Victoria called corporate counsel.
Claire cried.
Owen paced.
I stood in the middle of them with my daughter moving inside me.
Eventually I shouted.
“STOP!”
Everyone did.
“I don't care about an embryo from two years ago right now. I care about my daughter.”
Nathan looked at me.
“We need a legitimate test.”
“Then do one.”
“With your consent.”
“Yes.”
For the first time, consent.
Such a small word.
Such an enormous difference.
Nathan arranged an independent laboratory.
No Damon.
No Victoria.
No family company.
Results would take forty-eight hours.
That night, Damon stayed elsewhere.
I insisted.
Before leaving, he stood in the doorway.
“I never thought you cheated.”
“You literally tested our baby.”
“I thought something had been done to us.”
“You still betrayed me.”
“I know.”
“And Claire?”
He looked ashamed.
“There isn't an explanation that makes that okay.”
Correct.
After everyone left, I studied the security logs again.
Six Claire entries.
But something bothered me.
I expanded the history.
One date contained an anomaly.
Claire entered at 1:04 p.m.
Exited at 2:12.
But between those events, at 1:31, the security cameras went offline for exactly fifty-eight minutes.
Not disconnected.
Manually disabled.
Administrator access.
I checked the administrator account.
USER 07.
Victoria’s secret code.
I called her.
No answer.
Then I checked archived video immediately before the blackout.
Claire entered.
Twenty-seven minutes later, another car arrived.
The driver stepped out.
A woman.
Baseball cap.
Dark glasses.
She used Victoria’s code.
The image was poor.
But when she turned toward the camera, I stopped breathing.
I knew that face.
Not from real life.
From a photograph on my mother’s dresser.
A photograph taken twenty-eight years ago.
My older sister.
May you like
The sister my family told me had died when I was six.
And on the security footage, she was walking into my house.
