Chapter 3 - THE SURROGATE CONTRACT
The false contract contained details no stranger should have known.
The date of my embryo transfer.
The laboratory batch number.
The medications used during the first weeks of pregnancy.
The name of the nurse who held my hand when the doctor placed the embryo.
Someone had built the lie from authentic medical records.
Maya Chen, the attorney Agent Harris recommended, arrived before dawn.
She handled reproductive law and financial fraud, two specialties I had never imagined needing at the same time.
“The contract alone cannot make Victoria the legal parent,” she said. “But it could create chaos during an emergency delivery.”
“Enough chaos to take the baby?”
“Temporarily, if hospital staff believed the paperwork and both biological parents were unavailable.”
Michael was being investigated for assault.
I was hospitalized with contractions.
That was the condition described in the standby guardianship petition.
Maya requested an emergency family-court hearing and orders preserving every fertility record.
The clinic, Evergreen Reproductive Center, locked all access while its attorneys reviewed the database.
My original consent forms were missing.
Scanned replacements showed Victoria as the intended mother.
The embryo serial number remained ours.
The genetic source fields had been changed.
The clinic director called it a catastrophic data breach.
Agent Harris called it evidence.
A forensic technician compared the false contract with documents I had signed during IVF.
The signature was digitally genuine.
Someone had used my certificate rather than tracing my handwriting.
Michael’s signature was genuine too.
Or created with the same credentials he used at Carter Family Holdings.
“Who had access?” Detective Benton asked me.
“Our home computer stored copies of the IVF forms.”
“Password protected?”
“Yes.”
“Shared password?”
“Michael knew it.”
The implication sat between us.
At noon, Michael received permission for a monitored hospital visit after prosecutors agreed he was not a flight risk. An officer remained outside.
He stopped several feet from my bed.
His shirt carried a faint streak of soup near the cuff.
“I’m sorry.”
“For which part?”
“All of it.”
“You threw a bowl at your mother.”
“Yes.”
“You threatened them.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know Agent Harris would be at the house?”
Michael looked toward the door.
“I knew agents were serving warrants that evening.”
My pulse quickened.
“Why?”
“I contacted Harris six weeks ago.”
The room seemed to shift.
“You were working with the FBI?”
“I found payments from Victoria’s foundation to adoption brokers and clinic employees.”
“And you did not tell me?”
“Harris believed our phones might be monitored.”
“You let me walk into that dinner.”
“I thought agents would arrive before anything happened.”
“You thought wrong.”
His face collapsed.
“I know.”
Detective Benton placed an evidence photograph on the table.
Evergreen’s access log showed the false surrogacy records had been approved using Michael’s corporate authentication token.
He stared at it.
“I didn’t do that.”
“Where was the token stored?” she asked.
“In my home office.”
“Who knew?”
“Elizabeth. My assistant. Victoria used to.”
The log showed the exact time.
Three weeks earlier at 2:12 a.m.
Michael had been asleep beside me.
At least, I had believed he was.
Then Harris displayed a second record.
May you like
The same token had accessed our home camera system nine minutes before changing the clinic file.
Someone had watched us sleeping while using Michael’s identity.
