Claire did not speak for several seconds.
Then she laughed.
A tiny sound.
Not amused.
Exhausted beyond surprise.
“My school nurse.”
Marlene nodded.
“I’m almost certain.”
Daniel moved closer to Rebecca’s laptop.
“Her name wasn’t Caroline.”
“No.”
“What was it?”
Marlene closed her eyes.
“Carol Wynn.”
Claire looked at me.
I remembered the name.
Not the woman.
“Wynn?”
Claire nodded slowly.
“She treated my ankle junior year.”
Marlene stared.
“What?”
“I twisted it during volleyball.”
Daniel whispered, “Did she take blood?”
Claire went still.
I felt my stomach drop.
“Yes.”
Rebecca Sterling leaned forward.
“Why?”
Claire searched the memory.
“She said I looked pale. She did a finger-stick test.”
“That isn’t unusual.”
“No.”
“Anything else?”
Claire’s expression changed.
“She asked whether I knew my blood type.”
Daniel sat down.
Marlene covered her mouth.
Rebecca Sterling said, “School nurses sometimes ask medical history.”
Claire looked at her.
“She asked whether my parents had fertility issues.”
Nobody spoke.
“That is not normal,” Rebecca said.
“No.”
I remembered something too.
“Wait.”
Everyone looked at me.
Claire’s eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“The physical.”
“What physical?”
“Sophomore year. Sports clearance.”
“You didn’t play sports.”
“I tried out for soccer.”
Claire blinked.
“I forgot that.”
“So did I.”
Until now.
There had been a health fair.
Free physicals.
Blood pressure.
Vision.
Blood draw.
I looked at Marlene.
“Was Carol Wynn there?”
She stared.
“I don’t remember.”
Anne spoke through the phone.
“I do.”
I turned.
“What?”
“Michael was furious.”
“About what?”
“The school blood drive.”
I frowned.
“It wasn’t a blood drive.”
“He called it one.”
Claire looked at me.
“Did you give blood?”
“A vial.”
Anne whispered, “Michael made the school destroy your sample.”
Rebecca Sterling looked sharply toward the phone.
“How?”
“He threatened legal action.”
“Why?”
“He said the consent form was wrong.”
I stared.
“Dad knew.”
“Yes.”
“He knew Carol Wynn was Mercer?”
“I don’t know.”
Adam spoke.
“He knew someone was collecting samples.”
I turned toward my phone.
“You knew too?”
“Later.”
“When?”
“2009.”
Rebecca asked, “Through the photograph album?”
“Yes.”
“Was Carol in it?”
“No. Her code was.”
“What code?”
“C.V.-7.”
Thomas spoke through Daniel’s phone.
“Vale seven.”
Adam said, “Probably.”
Rebecca Sterling asked, “Do you have any of the school records?”
Claire looked at her parents.
Daniel shook his head.
Marlene looked uncertain.
“I kept medical forms.”
Claire stared.
“You kept everything.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Home.”
Rebecca immediately said, “Do not go there alone.”
Marlene almost smiled.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
Daniel looked at her.
“I can—”
“No.”
He stopped.
Marlene continued.
“I’ll have police retrieve them if they matter.”
Rebecca nodded.
“They matter.”
Claire looked down at Luca.
For several minutes, nobody said anything.
Then a new call came through to Rebecca Sterling.
She stepped away.
We watched her listen.
Her face changed slowly.
Not alarm.
Recognition.
When she returned, she closed the door fully.
“Federal investigators located Black Creek.”
Adam’s voice sharpened.
“They went already?”
“No. They verified the property.”
“Status?”
“Closed officially in 2020.”
“That means nothing.”
“I know.”
“What else?”
“Property taxes are current.”
“Owner?”
Rebecca looked at Thomas.
He seemed to sense it.
“What?”
“Vale Medical Heritage Foundation.”
Thomas whispered, “That was dissolved.”
“Apparently not.”
Daniel asked, “Who controls it?”
Rebecca checked.
“One trustee.”
Claire looked up.
“Carol Wynn.”
No one moved.
I stared at the photograph.
School nurse.
Clinic administrator.
Mercer medical successor.
A woman who had stood feet from Claire and me as teenagers while our parents believed we were simply classmates.
“Was she watching us?”
Adam answered.
“Yes.”
Claire looked at the phone.
“You knew that.”
“I suspected.”
“When?”
“After I saw the school code.”
“You could have warned us.”
“I was still hiding.”
“You were always hiding.”
Adam said nothing.
Claire continued.
“Did Michael know we were both being monitored?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
That explained Dad’s anger about the blood sample.
His sudden interest in which school forms I signed.
The way he had once told me not to let doctors “keep anything they didn’t need.”
At sixteen, I had thought he was paranoid.
Maybe he was.
Maybe paranoia was what Mercer looked like from the inside.
Rebecca Sterling asked Adam, “What was Carol supposed to monitor?”
“Compatibility.”
Claire’s voice went flat.
“Between Evan and me.”
“Yes.”
Daniel whispered, “No.”
Adam continued.
“Mercer’s later medical program tracked certain descendants who could consolidate lines.”
Claire stared at her father.
“You put us in the same school.”
Daniel’s face drained.
“To monitor Evan.”
“You said you didn’t know Mercer wanted us together.”
“I didn’t.”
She looked at Adam.
“Did Michael?”
Adam paused.
“Eventually.”
“When?”
“After your junior year.”
Claire laughed softly.
“So the adults moved Evan near me to watch him, and Mercer decided that was convenient.”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
“Carol began reporting both of you.”
Rebecca asked, “To whom?”
“Black Creek.”
“Directly?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have reports?”
Adam hesitated.
“One.”
Claire said, “Send it.”
“I don’t think—”
“Send it.”
He did.
Rebecca opened the document.
The date was nineteen years earlier.
We would have been seventeen.
Subject identifiers instead of names.
CARTER-M16.
BENNETT-F15.
I stared.
They had reduced us to line, sex, age.
Rebecca read silently.
Claire said, “Out loud.”
“Claire.”
“Out loud.”
Rebecca did.
“‘Observed social proximity increasing. No intervention recommended.’”
Daniel shut his eyes.
Rebecca continued.
“‘Both subjects demonstrate independent attachment not initiated through program contact.’”
I felt something tight in my chest loosen by a fraction.
Independent.
At least that.
Claire exhaled.
“Keep going.”
Rebecca read.
“‘Genetic compatibility within approved threshold.’”
Marlene whispered, “Oh God.”
“‘No known recessive conflict requiring separation.’”
Claire’s face emptied.
I reached for her hand.
She took it.
Rebecca continued.
“‘Carter guardian demonstrates suspicion regarding school sampling. Future collection should avoid institutional setting.’”
Dad.
He had noticed.
“‘Bennett guardian remains unaware of medical objective.’”
Daniel looked up.
“That was me.”
“Yes.”
Marlene stared at him.
“Apparently for once you truly did not know.”
He almost smiled.
Didn’t.
Rebecca continued.
“‘Potential consolidation outcome remains statistically viable if attachment persists voluntarily.’”
Claire looked at me.
“Voluntarily.”
I nodded.
“They were watching.”
“But not arranging.”
“According to this.”
Rebecca read the final line.
“‘Do not interfere unless either subject forms competing reproductive attachment.’”
The room went silent.
Claire’s grip tightened around my hand.
I felt anger rise slowly.
Cold.
Precise.
“What does that mean?”
Adam answered.
“If either of you dated someone else seriously, Mercer might intervene.”
Claire looked toward Daniel.
“Did anyone?”
He shook his head.
“Not that I knew.”
I thought back.
College.
Long distance.
Claire and I broke up for eight months.
I had dated someone briefly.
Rachel Donnelly.
Nothing serious.
Except—
She had transferred schools abruptly.
I looked at Claire.
She saw something.
“What?”
“Rachel.”
“Rachel who?”
“Donnelly.”
Claire frowned.
“The girl from your economics class?”
“Yes.”
“You dated twice.”
“Three times.”
“This is not helping your case.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
Barely.
Then stopped.
“She left school.”
Claire’s expression changed.
“When?”
“Two weeks after we stopped seeing each other.”
Rebecca Sterling said, “That proves nothing.”
“I know.”
Adam said, “Name?”
“Rachel Donnelly.”
Silence.
My skin tightened.
“You know it.”
Adam answered slowly.
“I’ve seen Donnelly in Black Creek records.”
Claire stared.
Rebecca said, “Different first name possible.”
“Yes.”
“Do not jump.”
I nodded.
But my body already had.
Claire looked at Adam.
“Any competing attachment involving me?”
Adam paused.
“Jordan Lee.”
Claire’s face changed.
I remembered him.
College freshman year.
Two dates.
Maybe four.
“You knew about Jordan?”
Adam said, “Black Creek did.”
Claire whispered, “He got sick.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“You remember. Mono.”
“That was common.”
“He missed a semester.”
Rebecca said, “Also common.”
Claire nodded.
“I know.”
But she looked frightened now.
Not because ordinary illness proved anything.
Because Mercer had written down the name of someone she had barely dated.
Adam continued.
“The program tracked social proximity. I never found evidence they harmed anyone because of dating.”
Claire stared.
“That is not comforting.”
“No.”
Rebecca closed the report.
“We need the full archive.”
Thomas said, “Police are imaging it.”
“Good.”
Adam spoke.
“There’s another reason Carol matters.”
Rebecca looked at the phone.
“What?”
“She knew Michael had found the reproductive records.”
“When?”
“2005.”
“How?”
“She was at St. Matthew’s.”
Anne gasped.
“Carol?”
“Yes.”
My mother whispered, “I knew that face.”
Everyone looked at her.
Anne continued.
“She worked there under another name.”
“What name?”
“I don’t remember.”
Rebecca sent her the photograph.
Anne inhaled sharply.
“Yes.”
“What name?”
“Caroline Price.”
Adam went silent.
Daniel stood.
“Price?”
Rebecca Sterling looked between them.
“You know that surname?”
Daniel nodded.
“Samuel Price.”
Claire frowned.
“Who?”
Daniel looked at her.
“An attorney.”
“For Mercer?”
“For my father.”
Adam said quietly, “And for Charles.”
Daniel stared at the phone.
“Samuel Price handled trust structures.”
Rebecca asked, “Relationship to Caroline?”
“I don’t know.”
Adam answered.
“Brother.”
Thomas muttered, “Of course.”
Rebecca Sterling looked at Claire.
“So Carol Wynn, Caroline Vale, and Caroline Price may be the same person.”
Adam said, “Yes.”
“School nurse, hospital worker, Black Creek administrator, Mercer medical custodian.”
“Yes.”
Claire whispered, “And she watched us.”
“Yes.”
Rebecca asked, “Where is she now?”
Adam went silent.
I felt the pattern.
Every time the answer became dangerous, someone paused.
“Adam.”
“I don’t know.”
“Last confirmed location?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“Where?”
He hesitated.
“St. Matthew’s.”
Anne gasped.
“The hospital?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“What was she doing there?”
Adam answered.
“Requesting archived pathology samples.”
My stomach dropped.
“Whose?”
He said nothing.
Rebecca’s voice hardened.
“Whose?”
“Michael Carter.”
Nobody moved.
My father’s tissue.
The sample Rebecca had just said might help verify our family relationships.
Claire whispered, “She knew we would look for it.”
Adam answered.
“Yes.”
“When did she take it?”
“She didn’t.”
Rebecca sat forward.
“Why?”
“Hospital pathology refused release without court authorization.”
“For once,” Claire whispered, “paperwork helped.”
Rebecca nodded.
“Do we know where the sample is now?”
Adam said, “Still there, according to my source.”
“Your source?”
“No.”
Everyone looked at the door.
A soft knock.
Then another.
Rebecca Sterling stood.
“I’m expecting no one.”
Daniel moved toward the door.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
Rebecca called hospital security.
Claire pulled Luca closer.
I stood between the bed and the door.
Another knock.
Then a woman’s voice.
Calm.
Professional.
“I’m here to check the baby.”
Claire went completely still.
The nurse assigned to her had a different voice.
Rebecca asked through the door, “Name?”
A pause.
“Caroline.”
Nobody breathed.
The woman continued.
“Caroline Price.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 17: Caroline Price Came to Our Hospital Room Wearing a Nurse’s Badge, but the File in Her Hand Proved She Had Been Following Claire Since Before Luca Was Born
The Night Before My Heart Surgery, My Husband Sent a Message That Changed What I Was Fighting to Survive For
Part 16 of 36
