Chapter 12
Thomas Wren was not a doctor.
He was an attorney specializing in trusts and estate planning. Years earlier, Northlake recommended him to couples who needed assistance with embryo disposition directives.
Glen and I met him twice.
He explained what would happen to stored embryos if one of us died, if we divorced, or if storage fees went unpaid. He was meticulous, solemn, and almost painfully ethical in his language.
Now his company had received a quarter of a million dollars from an entity linked to the hidden financial transfers.
Wren denied wrongdoing.
Through counsel, he stated that Blue Heron paid him for legitimate consulting concerning reproductive trust planning. He claimed attorney-client privilege prevented further disclosure.
Privilege could protect legal advice.
It could not automatically hide participation in fraud.
The court would decide the boundaries after private review.
Detective Ruiz’s team discovered that Nadine Cole had worked as a paralegal in Wren’s office before joining Northlake.
The connection was not secret. It had simply been overlooked because no one initially knew to look.
Nadine’s red glasses, Ariel’s frightened insistence, the altered embryo code, the trust provision, and the money were no longer separate details.
They formed a structure.
We still could not see its full shape.
Clara’s second genetic analysis arrived.
She was excluded as the genetic mother.
The result devastated her.
I expected relief, perhaps because part of me still wanted her to be the simplest kind of villain: a woman carrying her lover’s child and pretending confusion.
Instead, she sat across from me in Vivian’s office and pressed both hands over her mouth.
“What does that mean?” she whispered.
“It means the egg did not come from you,” Vivian said.
“Then whose baby is this?”
No one could answer.
Clara looked at me.
“Did Glen know?”
“I don’t know.”
She lowered her hands to her stomach.
For the first time, I saw her not as a carrier, conspirator, cousin, or rival.
I saw a pregnant woman who had surrendered control to people she trusted and discovered that even the identity of the life inside her had been hidden.
That did not erase what she did to me.
Two truths could exist without canceling each other.
“You helped him forge a story around my consent,” I said.
Her eyes filled.
“I know.”
“You let a doctor call me the intended mother and stayed silent.”
“Yes.”
“You accepted money you knew was connected to the trust.”
“Yes.”
Each answer was quieter.
“I don’t forgive you.”
“I know.”
“But I don’t want anyone controlling your medical decisions.”
Clara began to cry.
Not loudly.
Her shoulders folded inward as if she had been holding herself upright for weeks.
“What am I supposed to do?”
It was not my decision.
That was the first honest thing I could give her.
“You need independent medical advice, independent legal advice, and time away from Glen.”
“What about the baby?”
“The baby is not a contract clause.”
She nodded, though the fear did not leave her.
Clara decided to continue the pregnancy for the time being. Her physician explained her options without directing her. Vivian arranged counseling with a specialist experienced in complex reproductive cases.
The decision did not make her heroic.
It did not make her guilty.
It made her the person whose body carried the consequences while courts and laboratories argued over records.
Glen requested a private meeting with me.
I refused.
He sent a letter through counsel.
Mara,
I did not know the embryo was not ours.
Nadine and Wren told me Embryo B could be transferred under a gestational agreement if the records were properly updated. They said the suffix change was an internal requirement.
I should have spoken to you.
I should not have allowed anyone to copy your signature.
I believed the outcome would justify the method because I believed you would love the child.
I understand now that I was wrong.
There are things about Northlake that began before us. I tried to use a system I did not understand.
Do not trust Raymond.
Do not trust the embryo inventory.
And do not let them test the straw labeled B until you know who benefits from the result.
It was the nearest Glen came to admitting forgery.
It was also carefully phrased.
He admitted allowing someone to copy my signature, not creating it himself. He portrayed his crime as misguided love rather than ambition. He added warnings that could be sincere or manipulative.
Rebecca viewed the letter as evidence.
Detective Ruiz viewed it as a lead.
I viewed it as the voice of the man I had married—intelligent enough to understand consent, arrogant enough to believe he could replace it with his intentions.
The neutral forensic examiner issued an interim report.
Someone had accessed my embryo disposition records on March 12 using Thomas Wren’s credentials.
Wren claimed his credentials had been compromised.
On March 14, the date of the forged notarization, a new scanned consent was uploaded from an IP address registered to Bennett Harbor Logistics.
On May 29, Northlake’s laboratory system recorded two separate barcode scans within forty-three seconds.
The first scan identified Embryo D.
The second identified Embryo B.
Only one transfer was documented.
The security camera inside the embryology laboratory should have shown which specimen left the tank.
That section of footage was missing.
Not deleted.
Replaced.
The replacement file showed an empty laboratory for exactly six minutes.
At the bottom of the examiner’s report was one additional finding.
The same replacement technique had been used once before.
May you like
Seven years earlier.
On the morning Ariel’s embryo was transferred to me.
