I read Dana's message three times.
Jessica had worked at Oakfield Fertility Institute.
Not recently.
Years earlier.
Under a different surname.
Rachel came into the kitchen carrying two empty glasses.
She saw my face.
“What?”
I handed her the phone.
She read the message.
“Oh, God.”
I pulled out a chair and sat.
Suddenly, details from the previous year rearranged themselves.
Jessica had not entered Carter's life randomly.
At least, perhaps she hadn't.
I remembered the first time he mentioned her.
“She understands complicated corporate structures,” he'd said after a dinner meeting.
Jessica had been working for a consulting company that handled administrative and financial projects for Sterling Corporation.
Before that, according to Dana, she had spent nearly three years at Oakfield.
Two institutions.
One woman.
And somewhere between them sat our frozen male embryo.
Rachel sat opposite me.
“Could she have accessed your records?”
“I don't know.”
“Could she have known the embryo existed?”
“I don't know.”
I hated how often I had to say that.
For eleven years, I had lived inside a marriage I thought I understood.
Now every hour exposed another hidden room.
My phone rang again.
Margaret.
I let it stop.
Then Richard called.
Then Carter.
I turned the device face down.
“Why are they all calling you?” Rachel asked.
“Because something happened during Jessica's ultrasound.”
“What?”
“The doctor found an old fertility record.”
Rachel's expression changed.
“You think the baby—”
“I don't know yet.”
This time, the words felt almost unbearable.
Upstairs, Emma laughed.
Chloe shushed her.
Their voices reminded me what mattered.
Whatever Carter and Jessica had done, my daughters were not going to become collateral damage.
I gathered the papers.
“I need Dana to verify the release.”
Rachel touched my wrist.
“And then?”
“Then I decide what happens next.”
At 7:16, Dana called.
Her tone told me she finally had more than suspicion.
“Oakfield completed an emergency internal review.”
I stood.
“What did they find?”
“The embryo transferred eight months ago matches the identification number in your original IVF records.”
I closed my eyes.
Male embryo.
Ours.
“Recipient?”
“They still aren't formally releasing the patient's identity to us.”
“But you know.”
“I have enough information to say the pregnancy associated with the transfer appears to be Jessica's.”
My knees weakened.
I sat again.
Rachel remained completely still across from me.
“Successful implantation?”
“Yes.”
“Gestational timeline?”
“Consistent.”
I looked toward the dark kitchen window.
Rain ran down the glass.
“Say it plainly.”
Dana hesitated.
“Jessica appears to be carrying the male embryo you and Carter created approximately nine years ago.”
The sentence was clinical.
Its meaning was not.
The baby growing inside the woman Carter had left me for was genetically mine.
Mine and Carter's.
Jessica was carrying our biological son.
I pressed one hand against my mouth.
Not because I felt ownership of him.
Because someone had taken something created from my body and genetic material without my consent.
Someone had decided that my permission did not matter.
“Lauren?”
“I'm here.”
“There is more.”
I laughed once, without humor.
“There always is.”
“The authorization paperwork includes your signature.”
“Forged.”
“Yes. Oakfield now agrees there are substantial reasons to believe it was forged.”
“And Carter's?”
“His appears genuine.”
I stopped breathing for a moment.
Not suspicion.
Not inference.
A genuine signature.
Carter had participated.
“Did he know which embryo?”
“The paperwork identifies it.”
“So yes.”
“Yes.”
I looked at Rachel.
She understood from my expression.
Carter had known.
“Who processed the transfer?”
“An Oakfield employee.”
“Someone Jessica knew?”
“The clinic is investigating that.”
“Did Jessica use her old access?”
“Unknown. But Oakfield believes whoever arranged the release understood weaknesses in their legacy verification procedures.”
I thought about Carter's words outside the courthouse.
I have a son coming now.
He hadn't merely learned Jessica was carrying a boy.
He had known exactly whose boy she was carrying.
He had looked at me—the child's genetic mother—and told me to take our daughters away because he finally had the child he considered valuable.
Something inside me became very still.
“Dana.”
“Yes?”
“Preserve everything.”
“Already happening.”
“Emails. Access logs. Signatures. Storage records. Payments.”
“Yes.”
“Especially the corporate payments.”
“We're issuing preservation notices tonight.”
I stared at Richard's cost center on the document.
“What about Sterling Corporation?”
“We'll follow the money.”
“Good.”
I ended the call.
Rachel moved around the table and crouched beside me.
“You don't have to figure everything out tonight.”
“I know.”
But I had already begun.
The next call came at 7:43.
Carter.
I answered.
“Did Jessica know?”
No greeting.
No accusation.
Just the question.
Carter hesitated.
“Know what?”
“That the embryo was ours.”
“Yes.”
The ease of the admission stunned me.
I stood and walked toward the window.
“And you knew.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Lauren—”
“How long?”
“Before the transfer.”
My free hand curled against the windowsill.
“You knowingly authorized another woman to carry an embryo created from my egg.”
“I thought you'd agreed we were finished having children.”
“We were finished having children together. That did not give you permission to take an embryo.”
“I didn't think of it that way.”
“Of course you didn't.”
He exhaled.
“Jessica said the paperwork could be handled.”
“By forging my name.”
“I didn't know she was going to do that.”
“But you knew I hadn't consented.”
Silence.
“Carter.”
“Yes.”
There it was.
No ambiguity remained.
“Why?”
I already knew part of the answer.
I wanted to hear him say it.
“My father kept paying the storage fees.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He didn't want the male embryo destroyed.”
Male.
Not the female embryo.
Male.
My stomach turned.
“What happened to the other embryo?”
“I don't know.”
“You'd better find out.”
“Lauren, listen. Jessica told me there was a legal way to transfer the embryo if—”
“Stop.”
He stopped.
“You're trying to make this sound like a paperwork problem.”
“I know it wasn't handled correctly.”
“Handled correctly?”
My voice sharpened for the first time.
“You used my genetic material to create a pregnancy without my consent.”
“I wanted another child.”
“You wanted a son.”
Silence.
That silence answered me.
“You already had two children.”
“My father—”
“Your father didn't marry me.”
“You don't understand what it's like in my family.”
“I understand perfectly now.”
He breathed heavily.
Then he said something revealing.
“Jessica said this would fix everything.”
“Fix what?”
“My position with Dad. The company. The trust.”
I went still.
“What trust?”
He stopped.
Too late.
“What trust, Carter?”
“Forget I said that.”
“No.”
“It isn't relevant.”
“Then you won't mind explaining it.”
He swore under his breath.
I heard movement behind him.
A door closing.
When he spoke again, his voice was quieter.
“My grandfather created a family trust.”
“And?”
“Certain assets pass to the first male descendant in my generation's branch.”
The entire scheme sharpened.
A son wasn't merely Richard's obsession.
He had financial value.
“How much?”
“I don't know exactly.”
“Millions?”
Silence.
“Carter?”
“Yes.”
I looked at the gray folder.
Suddenly the corporate payments made sense.
Richard had not kept that embryo frozen because he was sentimental.
He had been protecting an asset.
A potential heir.
“Does Jessica know about the trust?”
“Yes.”
“When did she learn?”
“I told her.”
“When?”
“Months ago.”
Before the transfer.
I closed my eyes.
Jessica had worked at Oakfield.
Later, she worked around Sterling accounts.
She learned about Carter.
She learned about the embryo.
She learned about the trust.
Then she became involved with him.
That sequence bothered me.
“Carter.”
“What?”
“How did you meet Jessica?”
“Through work.”
“Who approached whom?”
“What does that matter?”
“Answer.”
He hesitated.
“She approached me after a consulting meeting.”
“Did she know about the embryo before you started seeing her?”
“I don't know.”
“You'd better start wondering.”
He went quiet.
For the first time, I heard something in his voice that had not been there before.
Fear directed not at me, but at Jessica.
“What are you saying?”
“I'm saying you may not be the only person who was using someone.”
He started to respond.
Then another call appeared on my screen.
Dana.
I told Carter, “Do not contact the girls tonight.”
“Lauren—”
“They are not consolation prizes because your son suddenly became complicated.”
I disconnected and answered Dana.
“What now?”
“We found something in the corporate records.”
“What?”
“Jessica's consulting firm had access to Sterling financial accounts before her relationship with Carter began.”
My pulse quickened.
“So?”
“One of the accounts she reviewed included Oakfield storage payments.”
I sat slowly.
“She knew.”
“It appears possible.”
“Before the affair?”
“Yes.”
I looked at Rachel.
The picture had changed again.
Carter had betrayed me.
Jessica had helped him steal our embryo.
But Jessica may have chosen Carter before he ever chose her.
“Dana, what exactly are you saying?”
“That we need more evidence before drawing conclusions.”
I waited.
She continued.
“But the timeline suggests Jessica may have known about the male embryo—and the Sterling family's financial interest in a male descendant—before she became romantically involved with Carter.”
My phone buzzed with another message.
Carter.
One sentence.
Lauren, Jessica is gone.
Then another.
She left the clinic and nobody knows where she went.
I stared at the screen.
Carter had believed he was finally getting the son he deserved.
Jessica had believed she was carrying the key to a fortune.
Richard had believed money could preserve a grandson who did not yet exist.
And all three of them had built their plans around something they never had the right to use.
My consent.
I opened the gray folder and placed the forged destruction letter beside the storage records.
Then I called Dana back.
“Don't just investigate the transfer.”
“What do you mean?”
“Investigate everything.”
“The trust?”
“The trust. Jessica's employment. Carter's messages. Richard's payments. Every person who touched those records.”
I looked toward the stairs, where Chloe and Emma were getting ready for bed in a house three thousand miles from their father.
“And find Jessica before the Sterlings do.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: By Midnight Jessica Had Vanished, but One Security Camera Showed She Left the Clinic Carrying Something No One Expected
Five Minutes After the Judge Ended Our Marriage, Carter Told Me Exactly What Our Daughters Were Worth to Him
Part 4 of 35
