Chapter 15 - Vanessa Finally Tells Her Secret
Daniel stared at Vanessa as though he had never seen her before.
“What does that mean?”
Vanessa looked at Rachel.
Rachel looked equally confused.
“Vanessa?”
“I’m sorry.”
Daniel’s patience was gone.
“No more apologies before answers.”
Vanessa nodded.
“Rachel had trouble staying pregnant.”
Daniel knew that.
Two miscarriages had nearly broken them.
Then Lily came.
Their miracle.
Vanessa continued.
“Rachel’s doctors said there was no clear reason.”
Rachel frowned.
“They never found one.”
“They did.”
Rachel’s face changed.
“What?”
“Northstar interfered with your records.”
Daniel felt sick.
“Why?”
Vanessa looked toward Eleanor, now guarded by federal agents.
“Because Eleanor knew Rachel was investigating her.”
Eleanor laughed bitterly.
“I didn’t touch her pregnancies.”
Vanessa turned.
“Not you personally.”
“Then who?”
Vanessa looked at Charles.
Charles was already being transported upstairs.
“He knows.”
Daniel followed the paramedics.
“Dad.”
Charles opened his eyes weakly.
“Did Northstar interfere with Rachel’s pregnancies?”
Charles looked horrified.
“No.”
“Don’t lie.”
“I’m not.”
Rachel held up the file.
“Then explain this.”
Charles read the first page.
His expression changed.
“That program was shut down.”
“What program?”
Charles closed his eyes.
“Calvin funded reproductive research.”
Daniel felt cold.
“Why?”
“To create leverage over wealthy families.”
Rachel stared.
“Genetic information.”
“Yes. Paternity. Fertility. Embryos. Anything people would pay to hide.”
Daniel looked at Lily’s file.
“But Calvin died before Lily was conceived.”
“Then someone restarted it.”
Vanessa nodded.
“I found out when Rachel asked me to check her medical billing.”
Rachel stared.
“You told me it was a coding error.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because I found an order to destroy your stored embryos.”
Daniel’s world narrowed.
“What embryos?”
Rachel looked at him.
“After the second miscarriage, we created embryos through IVF.”
Daniel remembered.
They had transferred one unsuccessfully.
They were told the remaining embryos were nonviable.
Vanessa continued.
“They weren’t.”
Rachel covered her mouth.
“Lily?”
Vanessa nodded.
“I transferred one to another clinic under a protected record. Months
later, when you were ready to try again, I arranged for it to be
transferred back.”
Daniel stared.
“You worked at the clinic?”
“I was compliance counsel for the hospital network.”
That was another fact Vanessa had softened when they met.
She had always said she worked in healthcare law.
“So Lily is ours.”
“Yes.”
Rachel began crying.
“Then why did you say you made sure she was born?”
“Because someone ordered every remaining embryo destroyed.”
“Who?”
Vanessa looked at Eleanor.
“I thought it was her.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“It wasn’t.”
Daniel opened the digital record.
An authorization code appeared beside the destruction order.
C.M.
Everyone looked at Charles.
He stared at the initials.
“That isn’t mine.”
Daniel almost shouted.
“Again?”
Charles lifted a shaking hand.
“Look at the date.”
Rachel did.
2018.
Calvin Mercer had been dead for twenty-one years.
Charles had no access to Rachel’s fertility clinic.
“Then who is C.M.?” Daniel asked.
Marcus, standing beside Sophie, suddenly looked toward the tunnel.
“Maybe it isn’t a person.”
They turned.
He pointed at the authorization format.
“C.M. could be a system account.”
Rachel searched the copied Northstar files.
She found dozens of transactions signed C.M.
Some dated after Charles’s retirement.
Some dated after Calvin’s death.
Then she opened the metadata.
The account expanded into two words.
CONTINUITY MANAGEMENT.
Daniel stared.
“What is that?”
Eleanor answered.
“The real Northstar.”
Everyone looked at her.
She laughed without humor.
“You thought I controlled everything?”
Rachel’s face hardened.
“You ran the blackmail network.”
“Yes.”
“But?”
Eleanor looked at Daniel.
“Continuity Management existed before me. Before Charles. Maybe before
Calvin.”
“What did it do?”
“Protected powerful families from disruption.”
“By imprisoning people?”
“Sometimes.”
“By killing them?”
“Sometimes.”
Daniel’s skin crawled.
“Who runs it now?”
Eleanor shook her head.
“I never knew.”
Daniel did not believe her.
Then Lily appeared at the top of the stairs with a federal agent.
“Daddy?”
Daniel went to her.
She held something in her hand.
A folded piece of paper.
“I found this in Bunny.”
Daniel frowned.
Her stuffed rabbit had been torn during the fake abduction.
Someone had hidden something inside it.
He opened the paper.
It contained a handwritten sequence of numbers and one sentence.
RACHEL WILL KNOW WHAT THESE MEAN.
Rachel looked.
Her face went white.
“They’re case numbers.”
“For what?”
She swallowed.
“Witness-protection files.”
Daniel stared.
“Whose?”
Rachel typed the first number into the secure database accessible
through her federal contact.
A name appeared.
ANNA REED.
Marcus gasped.
His sister.
Sophie’s mother.
Status:
ACTIVE.
Marcus grabbed the laptop.
“She’s alive?”
Rachel looked stunned.
According to the record, Anna had entered federal protection eleven
years earlier.
Marcus stared at Sophie.
For twelve years he had believed Eleanor murdered Anna.
Eleanor looked genuinely shocked.
“That’s impossible.”
Daniel turned toward her.
For the first time, the woman who had manipulated everyone looked
afraid.
May you like
And Daniel understood the final open question.
Someone had manipulated Eleanor too.
