Chapter 3 - THE SAMPLE THEY NEEDED GONE
Cross was stopped in the parking garage.
The cooler contained my blood.
Cord-blood collection kits prepared in my name.
And three frozen DNA samples labeled:
JC-1.
SC-2.
HC-3.
Claire asked what the initials meant.
Cross demanded counsel.
The hospital suspended his privileges.
Independent testing began immediately.
My baby’s fetal DNA matched me.
It did not match James.
The paternal match came from HC-3.
Henry Collins.
James’s father.
My father-in-law.
Dead for four years.
I vomited.
Then cried.
Then went completely numb.
Henry had stored reproductive tissue before chemotherapy.
Cross had access through the family fertility clinic.
Someone used Henry’s sample to create the embryo transferred into me.
Without my knowledge.
Without Henry’s consent, as far as we knew.
Why?
The Collins family trust contained an older clause.
If Henry produced a posthumous biological child, that child inherited a controlling block of shares immediately.
Not James.
Not his mother.
The child.
A court-appointed guardian would manage those shares.
Who had James already arranged to become guardian if I were declared unstable?
Himself.
The baby was not biologically James’s child.
Legally, James planned to become both stepfather and guardian to his own half-sibling.
He had engineered inheritance through my body.
I stared at Claire.
“Did Henry know?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Then Hayes found another document inside Cross’s car.
A birth plan.
Not mine.
A second pregnant patient.
Laura Reed.
Same gestational age.
Same due week.
Same fertility clinic.
Same BLUEBIRD code.
Her husband:
Michael Reed.
Chief financial officer of Collins Development.
Two women.
Two heirs.
Two controlled births.
Claire located Laura.
She was already inside Northfield.
Her husband had admitted her that morning for “prenatal psychosis.”
Claire obtained an emergency warrant.
We went nowhere.
I stayed hospitalized.
The police went.
At Northfield, Laura was found restrained in a private suite.
No psychiatric evaluation.
No court order.
Sedated.
Her baby’s DNA also did not match her husband.
Paternal source:
HC-3.
Henry Collins again.
Two posthumous biological children.
Why create two?
Backup.
If one pregnancy failed, the other could activate the trust.
If both survived, James could challenge paternity, guardianship, and competency until he controlled both.
Children as contingency.
Women as carriers.
Then Claire found the most disturbing page.
“Maternal disposition after delivery.”
For me:
Transfer to inpatient psychiatric wing.
For Laura:
Long-term stabilization.
No discharge dates.
James had no plan to let either of us walk out with our babies.
Then Laura woke.
She asked for one thing.
“Find Sarah.”
We spoke by secure video.
She looked pale.
Bruises on both wrists.
“I tried to call you two months ago.”
“I don’t know you.”
“You do.”
She held up an old photograph.
We stood together outside a fertility clinic.
Three years earlier.
I remembered.
Laura had been another patient in the waiting room.
We talked once.
Then twice.
Then she vanished from appointments.
She said we had exchanged numbers.
I never received her later messages.
James had blocked them.
Laura discovered Cross altered embryo records.
She warned me.
James deleted the warning.
Then she said:
“There’s a third woman.”
Not pregnant now.
Already delivered.
Eight years earlier.
Her baby disappeared after birth.
May you like
The woman’s name was Emma Collins.
James’s older sister.
