Chapter 5 - The Donor in the Dark
Owen moved instantly.
He shoved Rachel behind him.
“Who are you?”
The stranger raised his hands.
He was perhaps forty.
Dark hair.
Lean face.
A scar near his jaw.
He looked at Owen with an expression that was almost painful.
“My name is David.”
Judith's missing name.
Thomas Cole's first son.
Owen stared.
“No.”
David gave a humorless smile.
“That was my reaction too.”
Mercer whispered, “David Cole.”
David looked at him.
“You remember me.”
“I remember your file.”
Owen stepped forward.
“You're my brother?”
“Half brother.”
“Prove it.”
David removed a folded document.
A DNA report.
Owen didn't take it.
“Anyone can print paper.”
“Then test me.”
Owen stared.
David continued.
“I came back because Serena's father contacted me three years ago.”
Rachel frowned.
“Why?”
“He wanted access to biological samples Thomas had stored.”
Owen's jaw tightened.
“You gave them to him?”
“No.”
“Then how are you the donor?”
David looked toward Mercer.
“Because Thomas took them decades ago.”
Silence.
David explained that Thomas had found him when he was eighteen.
He had offered money.
Education.
A place in the family.
Then withdrawn everything when David refused to sign away his future claim to the Cole trust.
During a medical examination arranged by Thomas, reproductive material had been collected.
David had not understood why.
Years later, he discovered Westbridge had preserved it.
“Serena's father knew,” David said.
Owen looked sick.
“So the baby could be yours.”
“Biologically.”
Owen's fist tightened.
David immediately added, “I didn't choose this.”
Owen looked toward him.
“And I am not here to take that child from you.”
The words changed something.
Not enough.
But something.
Rachel asked the question nobody else had.
“Who sent the messages?”
David looked at her.
“I did.”
Owen stepped toward him.
“You took my son?”
“No.”
“You sent the photograph.”
“Yes.”
“You broke into my mother's house?”
“No.”
“Then someone else is involved.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
David looked at the ledger.
“Serena's father had a partner.”
“He's dead.”
“The partner isn't.”
Rachel crossed her arms.
“Name.”
David hesitated.
“Judith Cole.”
Owen went still.
“No.”
David handed him another document.
Bank transfers.
Westbridge payments.
Judith's signature appeared twice.
Owen stared at them.
Rachel did too.
But something felt wrong.
“Those signatures don't match.”
David looked at her.
“What?”
Rachel remembered Judith signing birthday cards, checks, legal documents.
“The J is wrong.”
Owen examined it.
Rachel was right.
The signature was close.
Not exact.
“Forged,” Owen said.
David frowned.
“Then whoever did this wanted me to believe Judith was involved.”
Rachel looked at Mercer.
“Who had access to these records?”
“Senior laboratory staff. Thomas. Serena's father.”
“And?”
Mercer hesitated.
“One administrator.”
“Name.”
“Claire Blake.”
Serena's mother.
Owen looked stunned.
“Serena told me her mother died when she was a child.”
Mercer shook his head.
“She didn't.”
Rachel felt the next twist before it arrived.
“Where is she?”
David answered.
“Alive.”
Owen stared.
“How do you know?”
“Because she contacted me yesterday.”
David pulled out his phone.
A message.
STOP DIGGING OR SERENA LOSES EVERYTHING.
Owen read it.
“Where is Claire?”
“I don't know.”
Rachel looked at the ledger again.
“Why would Serena believe her mother was dead?”
David's expression hardened.
“Because the Blake family was as good at rewriting history as the Coles.”
They returned to Mercy Lake before sunrise.
Serena was sleeping.
The baby remained stable.
Owen sat beside the incubator.
David watched through the glass but did not enter.
Rachel noticed.
“You could.”
“No.”
“He may be biologically yours.”
David looked at her.
“That doesn't make me his father.”
Rachel glanced toward Owen.
David followed her gaze.
“He does.”
For the first time that night, Rachel trusted something David said.
Later, Serena woke.
Owen told her David was alive.
Her reaction was immediate.
She knew the name.
“Your father told you about him,” Owen said.
Serena nodded.
“He said David was a donor.”
“You knew?”
“Not until the treatment.”
“You told me you didn't know his name.”
“I was scared.”
Owen closed his eyes.
“Stop lying to me.”
Serena cried.
“I didn't know David was your brother until after I was pregnant.”
“Would that have changed anything?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I would have told you.”
“But you didn't.”
“My father made me promise.”
“Your father is dead.”
Serena looked at him.
“No.”
Silence.
Rachel stared.
Owen whispered, “What?”
Serena's face crumpled.
“My father isn't dead.”
David stepped into the doorway.
Serena saw him.
Her eyes widened.
“You.”
David looked equally shocked.
“You've seen me before?”
Serena nodded slowly.
“At Westbridge.”
“When?”
“The day of the transfer.”
David's face changed.
“I wasn't there.”
“Yes, you were.”
“No.”
“You stood behind the glass.”
David stared at Mercer.
Mercer looked confused.
Then Rachel understood.
“Someone wanted Serena to think David consented.”
Serena nodded.
“My father told me he had.”
Owen's voice was hollow.
“Where is your father?”
Serena hesitated.
“I don't know.”
“Serena.”
“He calls me.”
“When?”
“He called tonight.”
Owen froze.
“Before labor?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Serena looked toward the NICU.
“He said after the baby was born, everything would belong where it should.”
David stepped closer.
“The trust.”
Serena nodded.
Rachel suddenly understood the scheme.
A child descended from Thomas's eldest biological son could become the strongest claimant to the Cole inheritance.
Serena had not merely been given a donor embryo or donor sperm.
She had been placed at the center of a succession plan.
Owen looked devastated.
“Our marriage.”
Serena shook her head.
“That part was real.”
“Was meeting me real?”
She couldn't answer.
That was worse.
Owen walked out.
Rachel followed him to the stairwell.
He sat on the steps.
For a long time, neither spoke.
Then he said, “I destroyed us for a lie.”
Rachel leaned against the wall.
“No.”
He looked up.
“We were already hurting.”
“Because I blamed you.”
“Partly.”
“I let my father control me.”
“Yes.”
“I let my mother manipulate me.”
“Yes.”
He almost smiled.
“You've gotten brutally honest.”
“I've had four years of practice.”
His smile vanished.
“Do you hate me?”
Rachel considered it.
“No.”
That surprised them both.
“I did.”
Owen looked down.
“But hate is exhausting.”
He nodded.
“Rachel…”
“Don't.”
“I wasn't going to ask you for anything.”
She studied him.
“Good.”
“I was going to say I'm glad you built a life without me.”
That hurt in a different way.
Before Rachel could answer, her phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A video.
She pressed play.
A man sat in darkness.
Serena's father.
Older than his obituary photograph.
Very much alive.
“Rachel Bennett,” he said.
“If you're watching this, David has already appeared.”
Owen moved beside her.
The man continued.
“Do not believe him.”
David appeared at the stairwell door behind them.
The recording continued.
“The baby born tonight is not David's biological son.”
David froze.
Owen stared at the screen.
Serena's father leaned closer to the camera.
“Because the embryo used to create that child was produced years before Serena ever entered Westbridge.”
Rachel stopped breathing.
The screen changed.
A laboratory record appeared.
Two names.
OWEN COLE.
RACHEL BENNETT.
Rachel's knees nearly gave out.
Then the recording ended.
A new message appeared.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO THAT BABY REALLY IS, OPEN STORAGE UNIT 17.
Below it was an address.
And a photograph taken less than a minute earlier.
It showed Rachel standing in the hospital stairwell.
Owen beside her.
David behind them.
Rachel slowly looked up at the security camera above the door.
May you like
Its red light was blinking.
Then the stairwell handle began to turn...
