Chapter 8 - Lucas Was Given To Adrian Deliberately
The guardianship records raised another question.
If Hannah was alive after Lucas’s birth, how did Adrian receive the baby under a story claiming Natalie Reed was the mother?
Dr. Hale eventually agreed to cooperate through counsel.
He admitted Charles Bennett orchestrated the false paperwork.
Hannah initially wanted Lucas placed temporarily with a neutral foster family while she entered treatment.
Charles intervened.
He argued that Adrian, as the biological father, had a right to the child.
That principle was not the problem.
The deception was.
Instead of telling Adrian the truth and allowing a lawful process, Charles constructed Natalie Reed as the legal mother.
Why?
Because revealing Hannah would expose the unauthorized embryo transfer.
Charles needed Adrian to accept Lucas without asking how conception occurred.
The Natalie story gave him a plausible brief relationship and a dead mother who could not contradict it.
Adrian had indeed met Natalie once at the charity event.
Charles exploited that small real memory.
Natalie participated in falsifying records.
Why she agreed remained unclear.
Her bank account showed a $250,000 payment from an EverLife affiliate.
But investigators also found messages suggesting Charles threatened to expose her own role in earlier record manipulation.
She may have been both participant and coerced accomplice.
She was dead and could not explain.
The story would not force certainty where evidence could not provide it.
Dr. Hale admitted signing false medical summaries.
He claimed he believed transferring Lucas directly to Adrian was safer than foster care.
Emily responded:
“Then you should have told him the truth.”
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Dr. Hale looked down.
That sentence applied to almost everyone.
