Patricia requested the meeting herself.
Not through Ryan.
Not through Thomas.
Her attorney called Angela and proposed a confidential settlement discussion concerning Claire's civil claims.
Claire's first answer was no.
Then Angela told her Patricia wanted to attend personally.
Claire reconsidered.
"Can anything she says be used?"
"Depends on the settlement protections. We can structure it carefully."
"I don't want a conversation where everyone pretends nothing counts."
"Neither do I."
Cole objected to Claire discussing the criminal investigation with Patricia.
Angela promised the meeting would focus on civil issues.
Claire promised nothing except that she would not interfere with police work.
The meeting took place at a mediation center downtown.
Patricia arrived wearing navy instead of her usual cream or pale gray. Her hair was immaculate. Her face was not.
She looked tired.
Claire had never seen Patricia allow tiredness to remain visible.
They sat opposite each other.
Two lawyers remained in the room.
No Ryan.
No Thomas.
No Megan.
Patricia placed her handbag beside her chair.
"Claire."
"Patricia."
For several seconds neither spoke.
Then Patricia said, "I want this to stop."
Claire almost smiled.
"What?"
"The destruction of the family."
Claire looked at her.
"You think I started that?"
"No."
The answer surprised her.
Patricia folded her hands.
"I think I did."
Claire remained silent.
Patricia looked down.
"I believed I was protecting Ryan."
"From me?"
"From uncertainty."
Claire nearly laughed.
"That's a very polished word."
"It's the accurate one."
"No. You were protecting him from having to accept that another person had equal rights."
Patricia's mouth tightened.
"Perhaps."
Claire had expected denial.
Agreement was harder to fight.
"Why did you create FP?"
"Ryan was afraid."
"Ryan approached Emily before FP existed."
Patricia looked surprised.
So she had not known everything.
Claire noticed.
"Yes," she said. "We found her."
Patricia's expression hardened.
"Then you know Ryan was already considering a carrier."
"I know he was doing it behind my back."
Patricia looked away.
Claire continued.
"You turned his fear into a system."
"I organized information."
"You secretly accessed my patient account."
"I never accessed your clinical records."
"You created an administrative record attached to my patient number."
Patricia did not deny it.
"You recruited potential carriers."
"I explored possibilities."
"You offered Nicole money."
"She was compensated fairly."
"She refused."
"Eventually."
Claire felt anger rise.
"Do you hear yourself?"
Patricia looked at her.
Claire leaned forward.
"You talk about women like available services. Emily. Nicole. Megan. Me."
"That's unfair."
"Is it?"
Patricia's voice sharpened.
"I watched my son suffer."
Claire's restraint nearly broke.
"I lost pregnancies."
"I know."
"No. You watched Ryan suffer because watching me was apparently too uncomfortable."
Patricia's eyes flashed.
"I watched both of you."
"Then why was every solution designed around what Ryan wanted?"
Patricia opened her mouth.
Nothing came.
Claire sat back.
"Exactly."
Patricia looked suddenly older.
"My first son died in my arms."
Claire had not expected her to mention Daniel.
She said nothing.
"He was eleven days old," Patricia continued. "For eleven days, every doctor told me to prepare. Every person who entered that room looked at me with pity."
Her voice remained controlled, but her hands tightened.
"When Ryan was born, I promised myself I would never again stand by while my family disappeared."
Claire listened.
She could understand grief.
She could even understand how grief mutated into control.
But understanding was not absolution.
"Daniel wasn't my responsibility."
Patricia closed her eyes.
"No."
"My miscarriages were not repetitions of your son's death."
"No."
"And Lily was not a cure for either."
Patricia looked at her.
"No."
Claire felt something shift.
It was the first time Patricia had allowed Claire's framing to stand.
Patricia took a breath.
"I was wrong."
Claire waited.
"I convinced myself that because the embryos contained Ryan's genetic material, protecting his access to them was morally justified."
"Even though you knew legally it wasn't."
"Yes."
"You knew from the Westbridge consultation that my consent was required."
"Yes."
"You knew before Megan's transfer that I hadn't personally confirmed anything."
Patricia hesitated.
"Yes."
Claire's pulse quickened.
"Did you know the signature was forged?"
Patricia looked toward her attorney.
He spoke quietly.
"You don't need to answer questions concerning potential criminal exposure."
Patricia remained silent.
Claire watched her.
Then Patricia said, "I knew Claire had not signed it."
Her attorney closed his eyes.
Angela became very still.
Claire felt no triumph.
Only cold.
"How?"
Patricia swallowed.
"Because Ryan told me."
The room seemed to lose sound.
"When?"
"The night before the transfer."
Claire thought of Thomas's statement.
Marissa noticing the missing initial.
Patricia calling Ryan.
Ryan saying they were too close to stop.
"Did Ryan forge it?"
Patricia's attorney intervened.
"Patricia."
But Patricia looked at Claire.
"No."
Claire stared.
"What?"
"Ryan didn't forge your signature."
"How do you know?"
"Because I did."
No one moved.
Claire felt her heartbeat in her throat.
Patricia's attorney whispered something furious under his breath.
Angela leaned forward.
"Mrs. Parker, I want to be very clear. Are you voluntarily stating that you personally wrote Claire Bennett's signature on the transfer authorization?"
Patricia looked at her.
"Yes."
Claire stared at the woman across the table.
For months the forged signature had existed as an abstraction.
Someone.
A hand.
A copied name.
Now Claire could see that hand.
Patricia's.
The same hand that had served Christmas dinner.
Held Claire's shoulder after the first miscarriage.
Written birthday cards.
Pointed across tables while criticizing her.
That hand had copied Claire's name and turned a theft into paperwork.
"Why?"
Patricia's composure finally cracked.
"Because Ryan couldn't."
Claire frowned.
"Couldn't?"
"He tried."
Claire's skin prickled.
"He tried to forge it?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Two days before the transfer."
"What happened?"
"It looked wrong."
Claire almost laughed at the grotesque absurdity.
"So you improved it."
Patricia's eyes filled.
"Yes."
"You practiced."
Patricia looked down.
Claire knew.
"How many times?"
No answer.
"How many?"
"Twenty. Maybe more."
Angela closed her eyes briefly.
Claire imagined Patricia sitting at a desk writing her name repeatedly.
Claire Bennett.
Claire Bennett.
Claire Bennett.
Until theft looked authentic.
"Where did you get examples?"
"Old Christmas cards. Documents."
"Medical forms?"
Patricia hesitated.
"Marissa sent a scanned signature page."
Claire's stomach turned.
The clinic employee had not merely approved the forgery.
She had helped make it convincing.
"Did Marissa know why?"
"Yes."
Claire looked toward Angela.
The civil exposure widened again.
But Claire was barely thinking legally now.
"Why leave out my middle initial?"
Patricia's face tightened.
"I didn't know about it."
The mistake that exposed everything.
A single letter.
M.
Claire's mother had chosen Marie because it was her own middle name.
For years Claire had considered it almost decorative.
Now one missing initial had cracked open an entire conspiracy.
Patricia wiped beneath one eye.
"I thought once Lily existed, you would eventually understand."
Claire stared.
"Understand what?"
"That nothing could be undone."
The words were horrifying in their simplicity.
Create the irreversible fact first.
Force everyone else to live around it afterward.
Claire stood.
Patricia looked up.
"You thought Lily's existence would make what you did acceptable."
"No."
"You just said exactly that."
"I thought you wouldn't want to hurt her."
Claire felt anger flare.
"You counted on my compassion."
Patricia began crying.
Claire did not soften.
"You knew I would protect an innocent child even if you violated me to create the situation."
Patricia's silence confirmed it.
Claire stepped away from the table.
That was the most calculated part.
Not the forged signature.
Not the money.
Not the hidden file.
They had believed Claire's love for a child would become the lock on the door after they crossed through it.
Angela stood too.
The meeting was finished.
Before Claire reached the door, Patricia spoke.
"Ryan didn't know I had practiced your signature."
Claire stopped.
"What?"
"He knew the form wasn't genuine. He knew you hadn't consented. But he didn't know I was the one who ultimately signed it until afterward."
Claire turned.
"Why does that matter?"
"Because there's something else he doesn't know."
Her attorney immediately said, "Patricia, stop."
Patricia ignored him.
Claire waited.
"The remaining embryo."
Claire's body went cold.
"What about it?"
Patricia looked terrified now.
Not guilty.
Terrified.
"The one in storage isn't the embryo Ryan thinks it is."
Nobody spoke.
Angela slowly sat back down.
Claire returned to the table.
"What does that mean?"
Patricia's attorney placed a hand over his notes.
"This meeting is concluded."
Patricia shook her head.
"No."
"Patricia."
"No more."
She looked directly at Claire.
"When Marissa prepared Megan's transfer, there were supposed to be two embryos in storage."
Claire's mouth went dry.
"There were."
"Not after the transfer."
"One remained."
Patricia shook her head.
"That's what Ryan believes."
Claire stared.
"What are you saying?"
Patricia's voice became barely audible.
"Marissa told me there had been a labeling problem years earlier."
Claire gripped the chair.
"What labeling problem?"
"One embryo in your storage account may not have been yours."
The room seemed to tilt.
Angela immediately asked, "May not?"
Patricia nodded.
"Marissa discovered it while preparing Megan's file."
Claire could hear her own breathing.
"Then which embryo was transferred to Megan?"
Patricia closed her eyes.
"I don't know."
Claire felt the floor vanish beneath everything she had accepted about Lily.
"No."
Patricia opened her eyes.
"I don't know, Claire."
"Lily looks like me."
"I know."
"She has my mother's dimple."
"I know."
"Then she's mine."
"Probably."
Claire stepped back.
"Don't say probably."
Patricia began crying harder.
Claire did not care.
"Don't you dare say probably."
Angela stood beside her.
"Claire."
But Claire could not look away from Patricia.
"What exactly did Marissa tell you?"
Patricia swallowed.
"That years earlier, two embryo-storage identifiers were entered incorrectly during a database migration. She believed the physical labels were right, but she couldn't guarantee it."
"Whose other account?"
Patricia looked toward her attorney.
He shook his head.
She answered anyway.
"Another Westbridge couple."
"Names."
"I only know the surname."
Claire waited.
Patricia whispered it.
"Dalton."
Angela was already writing.
Claire's hands shook.
"Does Westbridge know?"
"Marissa said she corrected the database quietly."
"When?"
"Before Megan's transfer."
"Did she test anything?"
"No."
"Did she tell Dr. Reed?"
"No."
"Why not?"
Patricia's answer was almost inaudible.
"Because reporting it would have stopped the transfer."
Claire stared at her.
Again.
Always the same choice.
When truth threatened the plan, someone buried truth.
Claire thought of Lily.
Her dark hair.
Her cheek.
Her fingers around Claire's.
Biology suddenly felt both desperately important and strangely secondary.
Whatever testing eventually showed, Lily was still the child at the center of the harm.
But the remaining embryo now carried an entirely new question.
Was it Claire and Ryan's?
Had Lily come from the correct embryo?
Had another couple's reproductive material been caught inside the Parker family's scheme?
Claire turned toward Angela.
"We find the Daltons."
Angela nodded.
"We find them."
Patricia spoke behind them.
"Claire."
She stopped at the door but did not turn.
"I'm sorry."
Claire closed her eyes.
Then she answered without anger.
"You should be."
She walked out.
Cole was waiting downstairs because Angela had alerted him during a break.
Claire approached him.
"Patricia confessed."
His expression changed.
"To what?"
"Forging my signature."
Cole became very still.
Claire continued.
"And we have another problem."
"What?"
She looked through the glass doors toward the gray afternoon outside.
"A possible embryo identification error."
Cole frowned.
"Whose?"
"Mine."
She finally looked at him.
"And a family named Dalton."
Cole immediately took out his phone.
Claire stood beside him while he made the call.
She thought the worst discovery had already happened when she learned Lily was genetically hers.
Then when she learned Ryan knew.
Then Patricia.
Then the trust.
But the story kept widening because every secret had been protected by another secret.
Cole ended the call.
"We have a match."
Claire's pulse jumped.
"The Daltons?"
"Westbridge had one couple with that surname storing embryos during the relevant period."
"Where are they?"
Cole's face became grave.
"The wife is in Colorado."
"And the husband?"
"He died two years ago."
Claire swallowed.
"Do they still have embryos stored?"
Cole looked at his phone.
"According to the current database, no."
Claire felt dread rise.
"What happened to them?"
Cole met her eyes.
"Their last embryo was reported lost during thawing."
Claire stopped breathing.
"When?"
Cole checked the date.
Then looked up.
"Three weeks after Lily's transfer."
Click here to continue reading: PART 17: The Dalton Records Reveal Which Embryo Was Actually Transferred, Forcing Claire to Separate Motherhood From the Biology She Thought She Knew
The Last Person Claire Expected to See at the Fertility Clinic Was the Woman Who Had Celebrated Her Divorce
Part 16 of 35
