Chapter 6
For several seconds, I couldn’t make sense of the words.
Zero percent.
The page shook in my hand.
Ryan stared at me.
Megan whispered, “Oh my God.”
Linda stood outside the chained door looking almost pleased.
I looked at Ryan.
“That’s fake.”
He didn’t answer.
My chest tightened.
“Ryan.”
“I’m listening.”
“You know it’s fake.”
Linda laughed from the porch.
“Do you?”
I turned toward her.
“How did you even get Noah’s DNA?”
Her smile widened.
That was when the fear hit me.
Not because I believed the report.
Because she had access to my baby.
Hair.
Pacifiers.
Bottles.
Diapers.
Anything.
Ryan looked at his mother.
“How?”
“Open the door.”
“No.”
“Then keep wondering.”
Megan stepped beside me.
“Call the police. Now.”
Linda rolled her eyes.
“Oh, please.”
Ryan held up his phone.
“I already did.”
Her expression flickered.
Then she turned and walked toward her car.
I shouted, “Where did you get his DNA?”
She looked back.
“Maybe you should ask your wife where she was last summer.”
My blood boiled.
“I was pregnant with your grandson last summer!”
She got into her car.
Ryan didn’t follow.
He closed the door.
Locked it.
Then turned toward me.
His face was unreadable.
I held up the paper.
“You cannot seriously believe this.”
“I don’t know what I believe.”
It hurt.
More than I expected.
“Wow.”
“Sarah, she has been lying about everything.”
“Exactly.”
“But this looks like a real lab.”
“So call them.”
Megan snatched the paper.
“There’s a phone number.”
She dialed.
The laboratory existed.
That made my stomach twist.
But when Megan read the report number, the receptionist said she could not disclose results without authorization.
Claire arrived thirty minutes later after I sent her a photograph.
She studied the report.
“This may be genuine.”
Ryan sat down.
I stared at her.
“What?”
“I said the document may be genuine. I did not say the sample belongs to Noah.”
I understood.
“She switched it.”
“Possibly.”
Claire pointed toward a line at the bottom.
“The tested child is identified only by initials N.C.”
“No photograph?”
“No chain-of-custody certification.”
“What does that mean?”
“It appears to be an at-home sample collection, not a legal paternity test.”
Ryan rubbed his forehead.
“So anyone could have swabbed anyone.”
“Correct.”
I looked at him.
He looked ashamed.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.”
“Sarah.”
“You doubted me in less than five minutes.”
“I’m scared.”
“So am I.”
“I’m watching my entire childhood turn out to be a lie.”
“And I’m watching my husband wonder whether our child is his because his mother handed him a piece of paper.”
He flinched.
Before he could answer, Claire interrupted.
“This is what Linda wants.”
We both looked at her.
“She wants you fighting each other.”
Megan nodded.
“She can’t beat both of you if you’re united.”
Claire pointed to the report.
“So she introduces doubt.”
I hated how effective it had been.
Ryan looked at me.
“I’ll take a legal test.”
“You don’t need one.”
“I know.”
He swallowed.
“But when this goes to court, I want something she can’t twist.”
That made sense.
I still hated it.
We arranged a legally witnessed test for the next morning.
The police took Linda’s latest visit seriously because she had been told not to contact Noah during the open CPS investigation.
But unless a protective order existed, there were limits.
Claire filed for one that afternoon.
Temporary emergency protection.
No contact with me.
No contact with Noah.
No entry onto our property.
The judge scheduled a hearing.
Linda was served the next day.
Three hours later, Ryan received a text from Jason.
CALL ME NOW.
We called.
Jason’s voice sounded panicked.
“Mom came to my house.”
“What?”
“She told me if I testify for Sarah, she’ll ruin me.”
Ryan stood.
“With what?”
“I don’t know. She said she has evidence my wife is unfit too.”
Claire motioned for Jason to slow down.
“Did you record the conversation?”
“No.”
“Any witnesses?”
“My wife.”
“Write down everything you remember immediately.”
Jason hesitated.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Mom has been talking to Dad.”
Ryan froze.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“I haven’t spoken to him in twenty years.”
“I know.”
“How do you know she’s talking to him?”
“Because he called me.”
Ryan sat down.
“He called you?”
“About an hour ago.”
“What did he want?”
“He asked if it was true Mom was around a baby again.”
The room went quiet.
Ryan’s face changed.
“Give me his number.”
Jason did.
Ryan stared at it for almost a minute.
Then he called.
A man answered on the fourth ring.
“Hello?”
Ryan’s voice disappeared.
I touched his arm.
He swallowed.
“Dad?”
Silence.
Then a shaky breath.
“Ryan?”
My husband closed his eyes.
“Yeah.”
The man started crying.
Not loud.
Just one broken sound.
I looked away.
It felt too private.
“I’ve waited a long time to hear your voice,” he said.
Ryan could barely speak.
“We need to talk about Mom.”
His father’s voice hardened immediately.
“What did she do?”
“She hurt my son.”
Another silence.
“How old?”
“Three months.”
“Ryan.”
The fear in his father’s voice told us everything.
“What?”
“Do not leave that child alone with her.”
“We won’t.”
“I mean it.”
“She’s already been removed.”
“Good.”
Ryan tightened his grip on the phone.
“Dad, what really happened to Emily?”
The man inhaled slowly.
Then he said, “Not over the phone.”
Ryan stared ahead.
“Why?”
“Because what your mother did to Emily wasn’t the first incident.”
My skin prickled.
Ryan whispered, “What do you mean?”
“Meet me.”
“Where?”
“A public place.”
“You think she’s dangerous?”
His father laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Son, your mother has spent thirty-six years making sure nobody believes what she is.”
We agreed to meet him at a café the next afternoon.
Claire insisted on coming.
So did Megan.
Ryan’s father, Thomas Walker, arrived early.
He was sixty-seven.
Tall.
Gray hair.
Ryan’s eyes.
The resemblance was immediate.
Ryan stopped walking.
Thomas stood.
For a moment neither moved.
Then Thomas crossed the distance and hugged his son.
Ryan broke.
I had seen him cry before.
At our wedding.
When Noah was born.
But this was different.
He clung to his father like a child.
Thomas kept saying, “I’m sorry.”
Eventually they sat down.
Thomas looked at me.
“You’re Sarah?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s Noah?”
I had brought him in his carrier because I refused to leave him anywhere.
Thomas stared at the baby.
His eyes filled again.
“He looks like Ryan did.”
That simple sentence hurt.
After everything Linda had planted in our heads, it felt like a gift.
Thomas opened a leather folder.
“I kept everything.”
Police reports.
Medical records.
Court documents.
Photographs.
Letters.
There were far more than the papers from our locked drawer.
Thomas pushed one photograph toward Ryan.
It showed a baby with bruising along one arm.
Ryan looked confused.
“Emily?”
Thomas shook his head.
“You.”
Ryan went pale.
“What happened?”
“Your mother grabbed you hard enough to leave fingerprints when you were four months old.”
I covered my mouth.
Thomas slid forward another report.
“At five months, Emily was treated for a fractured rib.”
Ryan stared at him.
“Mom said Dad dropped her.”
Thomas nodded sadly.
“She blamed me.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you leave?”
“I tried.”
Thomas looked ashamed.
“I was afraid if I left, she would get custody.”
Claire asked, “Was Linda ever formally diagnosed with anything?”
“I don’t know. She refused evaluation.”
He turned to Ryan.
“The night Emily died, your mother called me at work.”
His voice began shaking.
“She said, ‘One of them finally stopped crying.’”
Ryan’s face crumpled.
Thomas continued.
“I drove home so fast I hit a curb.”
He stared at the table.
“Emily was in the bathtub. Blue. Barely breathing.”
I reached for Ryan’s hand.
This time he let me hold it.
Thomas wiped his eyes.
“Your mother told police she had been trying to cool a fever.”
Claire looked at the records.
“But investigators rejected that explanation.”
“Yes.”
“Why was the sentence so short?”
Thomas’s face hardened.
“Plea agreement. Negligent injury. The prosecutor was afraid they couldn’t prove intent.”
“And Emily?”
“She died before trial.”
Thomas looked toward Noah.
“I wanted Linda prohibited from seeing you.”
“What happened?”
“She told the court I was violent.”
Ryan’s jaw tightened.
“She did the same thing she’s doing to Sarah.”
Thomas nodded.
“She had photographs of bruises on herself.”
“Were they real?”
“Yes.”
“Did you cause them?”
“No.”
Thomas hesitated.
“I later learned she had hurt herself.”
Ryan leaned back as if struck.
For three hours, Thomas told us everything.
By the end, Claire had pages of notes.
Then Thomas said something that changed the entire case.
“There’s one more thing.”
He pulled out a small cassette tape inside a plastic evidence bag.
Ryan frowned.
“What is that?”
“An answering-machine recording.”
“Of what?”
Thomas looked at me.
Then at Ryan.
“The call Linda made the night Emily was taken to the hospital.”
Ryan stopped breathing.
“You still have it?”
“Yes.”
“Why wasn’t it used?”
“My lawyer had a copy. The prosecutor had a copy.”
Thomas’s face darkened.
“But the original disappeared from police evidence before trial.”
Claire leaned forward.
“And you kept another original?”
Thomas nodded.
“I made two.”
My heart began pounding.
“What does she say on it?”
May you like
Thomas looked at Ryan.
“Enough to destroy every lie she has told for thirty-six years.”
