Chapter 5
Dr. Malcolm Pierce tried to run.
That told us almost everything before he said a word.
Rebecca called the clinic from the church basement.
An administrator answered.
Pierce had canceled every appointment for the day twenty minutes earlier.
Agents reached his house thirty-five minutes later.
His car was gone.
Airport security located him at a private terminal outside the city.
He was carrying eighty thousand dollars in cash and a passport.
By noon, he was in custody.
By three, I was sitting across from Nora inside a protected FBI conference room while Rebecca questioned him one floor below.
I could barely feel my hands.
“Whatever they did,” Nora said, “you need to stay calm.”
“I don’t want to stay calm.”
“I know.”
“I want to know whose baby this is.”
She hesitated.
“That may require testing after birth.”
“I used Adrian’s sperm.”
“That’s what you believed.”
“I watched the clinic label everything.”
“I understand.”
“Dr. Pierce congratulated us when the embryo implanted.”
Nora reached across the table.
“His crimes do not change the fact that this is your child.”
I looked at her.
“I know.”
And I did.
That baby had grown beneath my heart for eight months.
I had felt every kick.
Every hiccup.
Every restless midnight movement.
No document could change that.
But the possibility that Adrian and his family had tampered with the process made me physically sick.
Rebecca entered.
Her expression was unreadable.
“Well?” I asked.
She closed the door.
“Pierce is cooperating.”
“Whose baby am I carrying?”
“He says Adrian is the biological father.”
My eyes burned.
“You believe him?”
“We’re verifying everything.”
“What does ‘paternity sample reassigned’ mean?”
Rebecca sat down.
“Pierce says the clinic had an internal identification problem eighteen months ago. Adrian’s original frozen sample was mislabeled after being moved between storage units.”
“So he switched it?”
“He corrected the database.”
“Why was Vivienne paying him?”
“That’s where this gets worse.”
I waited.
“She paid him for access to your records.”
I felt strangely unsurprised.
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Pierce says Vivienne wanted advance information about every procedure, every pregnancy test, every embryo transfer.”
Nora asked, “Did he know why?”
“Eventually.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Vivienne wanted to know exactly when a pregnancy became viable.”
A chill moved through me.
“She was tracking my pregnancy.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Pierce claims she told him it was because of the trust.”
I laughed bitterly.
“My baby was a stock certificate to her.”
Rebecca continued.
“She also asked Pierce whether stress, medication changes, or travel could increase the chances of a pregnancy failing.”
Silence.
My hands went cold.
Nora whispered, “Jesus.”
I stared at Rebecca.
“Did he give her anything?”
“He says no.”
“You believe him?”
“Not completely.”
I stood too quickly.
Pain tightened across my abdomen.
Nora grabbed my arm.
“Sit down.”
I did.
Barely.
“If Adrian hit me because he wanted me to lose the baby—”
“We don’t know that.”
“He punched an eight-month-pregnant woman in the stomach.”
“I know.”
“Stop telling me what you don’t know.”
Rebecca held my gaze.
Then her voice softened.
“We have enough to charge him separately for the assault. The video is clear.”
“Good.”
“But we still need to dismantle the fraud case against you.”
That brought me back.
The twelve million.
The accounts.
The forged signatures.
“What did Pierce say about my identity documents?”
“He gave Vivienne copies.”
“For seventy-five thousand dollars?”
“Partly.”
“What else did she buy?”
Rebecca placed a printed email in front of me.
Pierce had sent it to Vivienne six months earlier.
THE PREGNANCY IS PROGRESSING NORMALLY. BASED ON CURRENT DEVELOPMENT, DELIVERY LIKELY BEFORE THE TRUST DEADLINE.
I stared at the final words.
“What deadline?”
Nora leaned forward.
Rebecca placed another document beside it.
“The Legacy Trust has an amendment.”
“Of course it does.”
“Signed twelve years ago.”
I read.
Most of it was legal language.
Then Nora pointed to one paragraph.
“If no biological grandchild of Conrad Blackwood is born before November first of this year, forty-one percent of the voting shares revert permanently to a foundation board.”
I looked up.
“What date is it?”
“September eighteenth.”
My due date was October twenty-sixth.
The baby would arrive before November.
Unless something happened.
Nora sat back.
“That explains the urgency.”
Rebecca nodded.
“Conrad was facing growing financial problems. The foundation board had become suspicious about irregularities. Once the shares reverted, he would lose the ability to hide transactions.”
“So he needed my baby.”
“Yes.”
“But if he was arrested—”
“Then control passes through the guardian structure.”
I closed my eyes.
Everything circled back to my child.
My pregnancy was the center of their financial plan.
A baby I had begged God for had become leverage.
I opened my eyes.
“Where is Adrian?”
“In federal detention pending another hearing tomorrow.”
“And Conrad?”
“Also detained.”
“Vivienne?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“Released.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“She wasn’t initially charged with the primary financial offenses.”
“You have emails.”
“We received the envelope after the initial hearing. We’re moving now.”
“She’s free?”
“For the moment.”
My phone rang.
Blocked number.
All three of us looked at it.
Rebecca motioned toward the recorder on the table.
“Answer.”
I pressed the button.
“Hello?”
A familiar voice spoke.
“You look tired in the hospital photographs.”
Vivienne.
My heart stopped.
Rebecca started tracing the call.
“What do you want?”
“I wanted to hear your voice.”
“You wanted my medical records too.”
Silence.
Then a small laugh.
“So Lila found the envelope.”
“Where is she?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“If you hurt her—”
“Please. I have never touched that girl.”
“You paid my doctor.”
“I paid many doctors.”
“You stole my records.”
“I protected my family.”
“By framing me?”
Her voice turned colder.
“You were never supposed to matter this much.”
The words hit harder than I expected.
For years, Vivienne had treated me like an inconvenience.
I thought it was because she disliked my background.
My career.
My personality.
Now I understood.
I had always been temporary.
A body expected to produce a child.
“What did you think would happen?” I asked.
“You would leave Adrian. The financial evidence would surface. You would be discredited. Adrian would take custody.”
“And my baby?”
“Our baby.”
Rage exploded inside me.
“No.”
“You married into this family.”
“My child does not belong to you.”
“The Blackwood name belongs to history.”
“It belongs on a federal indictment.”
Her breathing changed.
I smiled despite myself.
“You’re afraid.”
“I am never afraid.”
“You should be.”
“You think one envelope destroys me?”
“I think prison will.”
Rebecca shook her head, warning me not to push further.
Vivienne continued.
“Do you know what Adrian told me after you married him?”
I said nothing.
“He said you were useful because you wanted love so badly.”
My throat tightened.
“He said all he had to do was apologize after hurting you and you would stay.”
I hated that the words landed.
Because there was truth inside them.
Not about my weakness.
About his manipulation.
Vivienne wanted me ashamed.
Instead, something inside me hardened.
“He miscalculated.”
“So did you.”
The line went dead.
Rebecca immediately contacted the agents searching for her.
They reached the Blackwood townhouse fifteen minutes later.
Vivienne was gone.
Her passport remained.
Her car remained.
Her phone had been left in the kitchen.
“She planned this,” I said.
Rebecca nodded.
Then her own phone rang.
She answered.
Her face changed.
“What happened?”
A pause.
“Is she alive?”
I stood.
“Lila?”
Rebecca raised a hand.
She listened.
Then ended the call.
“Police found Lila’s car.”
Daniel Monroe, who had been waiting downstairs, rushed into the room after hearing the commotion.
“Where?”
Rebecca looked at him.
“Abandoned near a reservoir.”
His face drained.
“Was she inside?”
“No.”
He sagged with relief.
Then Rebecca continued.
“There was blood on the driver’s seat.”
Daniel grabbed the table.
I felt sick.
“How much?”
“Not enough to know what happened.”
“Vivienne,” I whispered.
Rebecca did not answer.
Then another agent entered holding a tablet.
“You need to see this.”
Security footage from a gas station filled the screen.
Lila’s car stopped at a pump at 11:42 the previous night.
Lila got out.
She looked terrified.
Then another vehicle pulled in behind her.
A dark sedan.
A man stepped out.
Not Adrian.
Not Conrad.
Not anyone from the Blackwood family.
Rebecca leaned toward the screen.
The man turned toward the camera.
I recognized him immediately.
Agent Mark Keller.
The same man who had supervised my FBI cooperation.
The same man with access to the internal interview-room cameras.
The same man who had looked at me with pity while telling me I might be implicated.
Lila climbed into his sedan.
Keller drove away with her.
Rebecca went completely still.
Nora whispered, “Your leak.”
Rebecca’s face hardened.
“Yes.”
I stared at the frozen image.
A federal agent had helped the Blackwoods.
A federal agent had taken Lila.
And suddenly the case was no longer about a corrupt wealthy family.
The corruption had reached inside the investigation itself.
Rebecca grabbed her weapon from the table.
“Stay here.”
“Where are you going?”
“To find Keller.”
I stood.
“You told him where I was.”
“No.”
“He knew about the hospital.”
“He may know this location too.”
Her expression changed.
Then every light in the conference room went out.
May you like
The building fell into darkness.
Somewhere in the hallway, an alarm began screaming.
