Chapter 4
Marcus wanted an immediate paternity test.
The doctor refused.
“At thirty-one weeks, we are not performing an invasive test unless medically necessary.”
“There are noninvasive options,” Marcus said.
The doctor nodded.
“Yes. We can compare fetal DNA fragments in maternal blood with your sample.”
“How long?”
“A few days if expedited.”
“Do it.”
I looked at him.
He stopped.
“Khloe…”
The hurt on my face must have reached him.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“You’re sorry?”
“I don’t mean I doubt you.”
“You just demanded a paternity test.”
“I doubt what was done to you.”
That stopped me.
His voice broke.
“If someone violated you while you were unconscious, I need to know.”
I looked down at my stomach.
My baby moved beneath my palm.
No matter what some test said, this was my child.
That truth held me together.
“Do it,” I whispered.
Blood was drawn again.
Marcus gave his sample.
Detective Ruiz left to obtain warrants.
Hospital administrators arrived.
Lawyers arrived.
Suddenly everyone seemed frightened.
Not of Isabella.
Of liability.
A senior administrator named Graham Pierce stood at the foot of my bed and apologized with carefully chosen words.
“We are deeply concerned by the possibility of an irregularity.”
“Irregularity?” I repeated.
“If the medical record is inaccurate—”
“You mean if someone inseminated me while I was unconscious.”
His jaw tightened.
“We have not established that.”
“The record says it happened.”
“Records can be altered.”
“Then prove it.”
“We are cooperating fully.”
Marcus gave a bitter laugh.
“That means your lawyers told you to say as little as possible.”
Pierce looked at him.
“Mr. Hale—”
“My wife was assaulted in your hospital today, and now we learn she may have been assaulted here months ago.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Get out.”
“Marcus,” I said.
He looked at me.
“Let him stay.”
Pierce relaxed slightly.
I stared at him.
“I want every record from that clinic visit.”
“You’re entitled to your medical records.”
“Not just the ones under my name. I want audit logs. Security footage. Staff schedules. Medication administration records.”
His face tightened.
“Some of those materials involve other employees and patients.”
“Then give them to the police.”
“We will.”
“Today.”
“We will comply with lawful requests.”
Marcus stepped toward him again.
I raised my hand.
“No.”
Marcus stopped.
I looked at Pierce.
“If anything disappears, I will make sure the entire country knows this hospital allowed a pregnant woman’s medical history to be altered.”
The administrator’s expression changed.
He realized I wasn’t helpless.
My name mattered.
Not because of Marcus.
Because before marrying him, I had built a public-relations company from nothing.
I knew reporters.
I knew attorneys.
I knew exactly how institutions behaved when they believed silence could protect them.
Pierce nodded.
“Nothing will disappear.”
“Good.”
After he left, Marcus sat beside my bed.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Then he said:
“You should hate me.”
“I do right now.”
He accepted it.
“But Isabella didn’t know about that clinic because of me.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I didn’t know.”
“She knew something you didn’t.”
“Yes.”
“Which means she got it from someone else.”
Marcus looked toward the door.
“Maybe Dr. Cole.”
“Did you know him?”
“No.”
“Did Isabella?”
“I don’t know.”
My phone buzzed.
Detective Ruiz had asked that it be returned after investigators copied relevant information.
A notification appeared.
Unknown number.
I opened it.
One sentence.
STOP DIGGING IF YOU WANT YOUR CHILD TO SURVIVE.
My blood turned cold.
“Marcus.”
He took the phone.
His face changed instantly.
He called Ruiz.
Within fifteen minutes, the detective returned.
She photographed the message.
“Do not respond.”
“Can you trace it?” Marcus asked.
“We’ll try.”
Another message arrived.
THIS IS BIGGER THAN ISABELLA.
Ruiz stared at the screen.
Then a third.
ASK MARCUS WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS BROTHER.
I looked at Marcus.
His expression went blank.
“What does that mean?”
He didn’t answer.
“Marcus?”
Detective Ruiz watched him carefully.
“You have a brother?”
“Had.”
The word came out quietly.
“What happened to him?”
Marcus walked to the window.
“My older brother Daniel died nine years ago.”
“How?” Ruiz asked.
“Car accident.”
The detective wrote it down.
“Why would someone mention him now?”
“I have no idea.”
I knew Marcus well enough to recognize when that was false.
“Marcus.”
He looked at me.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
He swallowed.
“Daniel donated sperm.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“He and his wife were trying to have a baby.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“They used a fertility clinic.”
My pulse began pounding.
“Which clinic?”
Marcus closed his eyes.
I already knew.
“This hospital,” I whispered.
He nodded.
Detective Ruiz stopped writing.
“When?”
“About ten years ago.”
“Was Dr. Cole involved?”
Marcus shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“What happened to the samples?”
“I thought they were destroyed after Daniel died.”
I stared at him.
“Thought?”
“His wife, Rachel, was devastated. They had frozen embryos and additional sperm samples. She told us she wasn’t going to continue treatment.”
“What happened to her?”
“She moved.”
“Where?”
“Oregon, I think.”
“You think?”
“We haven’t spoken in years.”
I felt sick.
“Marcus, if Daniel’s samples were stored here…”
He looked at my belly.
Neither of us needed to finish the sentence.
Detective Ruiz did.
“It creates a possible source.”
Marcus’s face turned gray.
“No.”
Ruiz remained calm.
“We don’t know that’s what happened.”
“Then find out.”
“I will.”
Marcus grabbed his phone.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Calling my mother.”
He stepped into the hall.
I watched through the glass as he spoke.
Thirty seconds later, he froze.
Then slowly lowered the phone.
He came back inside looking shaken.
“My mother kept Daniel’s clinic paperwork.”
Ruiz stood.
“Where?”
“In storage at her house.”
“Can she photograph it?”
“She’s doing it now.”
A few minutes later, files began arriving.
Old invoices.
Consent forms.
Storage agreements.
Then Marcus stopped on one page.
His hands trembled.
“What?” I asked.
He handed the phone to Detective Ruiz.
She read it.
Then handed it to me.
The top of the page showed a storage identification number.
Under donor/source:
DANIEL MATTHEW HALE.
Under material:
Cryopreserved semen specimens: 12.
Disposition:
Transfer authorized upon written spousal consent.
I looked at Marcus.
“Transfer to where?”
He swiped to the next photo.
An attached note.
TRANSFER REQUEST.
Destination facility:
Crescent Reproductive Center.
The clinic where I had gone.
My hands began shaking.
“When was that signed?”
Marcus looked at the date.
“Eight years ago.”
“Who signed?”
He zoomed in.
Rachel Hale.
Daniel’s widow.
Detective Ruiz asked, “Where is Rachel now?”
Marcus opened his contacts.
“I still have an old number.”
He called.
Disconnected.
He searched online.
Nothing obvious.
Ruiz said, “We’ll locate her.”
My phone buzzed again.
Another unknown message.
This time it was a photograph.
Marcus and Isabella.
Outside a hotel.
Six months earlier.
Kissing.
My stomach twisted.
A second photo arrived.
Isabella entering a black sedan.
A third.
The sedan parked outside Crescent Reproductive Center.
The timestamp was two days after Marcus’s conference.
I looked at him.
He stared at the screen.
“I didn’t know.”
“You slept with her.”
“Yes.”
“And two days later she went to the clinic where someone may have inseminated me without consent.”
“I didn’t know.”
His voice broke.
“I swear.”
Detective Ruiz forwarded the images to herself.
“Whoever is sending these has access to a lot of information.”
Marcus’s phone rang.
His mother.
He answered immediately.
“Mom?”
I watched his expression shift from confusion to shock.
“What?”
He looked at Detective Ruiz.
“Slow down.”
His mother was crying loudly enough that I could hear her through the phone.
Marcus went pale.
“When?”
He listened.
Then lowered the phone.
“What happened?” I asked.
He stared at me.
“Someone broke into my mother’s house.”
Ruiz stood.
“Is she hurt?”
“No. She wasn’t home.”
“What did they take?”
Marcus swallowed.
“Only one box.”
I knew before he said it.
“Daniel’s fertility records.”
He nodded.
My phone buzzed again.
A final message.
YOU WERE WARNED.
I stared at the screen.
Then at my husband.
Then at the baby moving beneath my hands.
This wasn’t jealousy anymore.
It wasn’t an affair.
It wasn’t even about Isabella.
May you like
Someone had been planning something for years.
And somehow my unborn baby was at the center of it.
