Chapter 9 - The Heartbeat That Never Was
The first recording of the supposed baby's heartbeat had arrived on a rainy Sunday six months earlier.
Dad played it through the speakers in our dining room, smiling with the same shy delight he had shown when teaching me to ride a bicycle.
Vanessa sat beside him with one hand resting on her stomach and the other gripping his wrist.
I remembered thinking that the sound was strangely clean, almost like a clip prepared for a presentation.
But what did I know about such things?
I had never been pregnant, and I had no reason to question whether a hopeful father could recognize a familiar rhythm.
Now, after the party, we did not need to prove the recording false to know that the pregnancy had been staged.
The silicone prosthetic was enough to establish the public deception.
The remaining question was who had prepared the performance and what they expected to gain from it.
Rebecca explained that actual medical records were private and would not become available merely because someone in our family demanded them.
Vanessa was entitled to medical privacy even while investigators examined whether she had submitted false documents for financial purposes.
That distinction frustrated Dad at first.
Then he nodded and asked counsel to focus on the records that had been offered voluntarily as evidence for the proposed trust.
One such attachment was a letter purportedly from a specialist confirming the expected delivery date.
A clinic administrator, contacted through proper legal channels, stated that the letterhead did not match its current format and that the document would require formal authentication.
Nobody declared it forged on the strength of a phone conversation alone.
Still, the discrepancy was another loose thread in a garment that was already unraveling.
The costume-effects supplier produced a lawful business-records response later that week.
It confirmed a custom prosthetic order, a fitting adjustment, and delivery to a business address used by Julian's administrative firm.
The invoice did not say that Vanessa had worn the item.
The footage of the garden party supplied that missing connection.
More disturbing was a service description attached to the invoice: performance continuity, six-month progression, and wardrobe concealment.
Those words transformed the artificial belly from a desperate last-minute improvisation into a planned deception.
Dad read them in silence.
I could tell he was calculating the months, remembering every tender gesture Vanessa had made while following a fitting schedule someone had purchased.
His grief did not erupt into anger that day.
It settled into a tired stillness.
One evening he asked if I would sit with him in the kitchen instead of eating alone in my cottage.
We made soup from vegetables left by the cook and toasted bread in the old oven my mother had insisted on keeping.
He told me about the night Vanessa first said she was expecting.
She had handed him a small gift box containing baby socks and a handwritten note.
He had laughed, cried, and called his oldest friend before he remembered to ask whether she felt well.
“I was selfish about it,” he said.
“I was happy before I thought about how she might feel.”
“You were happy because you believed your wife,” I answered.
“That part isn't a crime.”
“No,” he said.
“But I stopped listening to everyone else.”
I let the silence rest between us.
After dinner I showed him a photograph from the previous winter.
It showed Vanessa standing beside the nursery window with her belly partly hidden by a coat.
At the time I had saved it because Dad looked so pleased.
Now I noticed a faint strap line near the collar of her fitted dress.
I did not offer the photograph as proof of anything beyond the fact that the costume had been present long before the party.
Dad put the phone down and looked toward the dark garden.
“Did you ever suspect this?” he asked.
“Not the whole thing,” I admitted.
“I noticed odd details, but I thought I was being unfair.”
He shook his head.
“That is what she made you believe about yourself.”
The following morning Grant received a preservation notice from police concerning the anonymous messages sent to my phone.
Investigators were pursuing the sender's identity through lawful channels, but the preliminary information suggested the account had been used from a commercial internet connection.
The result could not identify one person.
It did, however, place the sender closer to the business world than to a random internet troll.
That afternoon a courier delivered a sealed letter to Rebecca's office.
It was signed by a woman named Clara Benton, who had worked as a scheduling assistant for Julian's firm until two weeks earlier.
Clara said she had seen a blue folder transferred from Vanessa's personal files to Julian's office on the day of the party.
She had not opened it and did not know its contents.
She also wrote that Julian had instructed staff to describe a series of costume-related payments as “hospitality consulting.”
Rebecca treated the statement as a lead requiring verification, not a final answer.
But Clara's account explained how the supplier's invoice could have moved through an ordinary business budget without attracting attention.
I asked whether Clara had sent the anonymous messages.
Rebecca said that had not been established.
“Let the investigators determine it,” she told me.
“You don't owe anyone a private meeting just because they promise answers.”
Then she pointed to the letter's final paragraph.
Clara claimed Julian had arranged an appointment with a publicity consultant for a birth announcement that would occur several months after the supposedly expected delivery.
The date was strangely flexible.
The proposed campaign included a family photograph but no confirmed appointment for an actual child.
I stared at the page, trying to understand the endgame.
Had they intended to prolong the deception forever?
Had they expected a financial transaction to conclude before anyone demanded to meet the baby?
Or was there another layer that even Clara did not understand?
I showed Dad the paragraph.
His face went gray.
“The financing meeting was scheduled for next month,” he said.
“Before the supposed due date.”
Suddenly the timing became clear.
They did not need a real baby to complete the proposed transaction.
They only needed him to believe there would be one until his authorization was accepted.
May you like
The child had not been their ultimate goal.
The child was their deadline.
