“I killed him.”
Harrison’s confession hung in the corridor while, behind the NICU glass, doctors fought to restore Chloe’s monitor.
Audrey could not decide which emergency to look at.
Her daughter.
Her grandfather.
Dominic Mercer stood utterly still.
Evelyn looked as though she had stopped breathing.
Then Chloe’s monitor flickered back to life.
A number appeared.
87.
Audrey gripped the wheelchair.
“Come on.”
90.
93.
The respiratory therapist gave a thumbs-up through the glass.
Only then did Audrey manage to inhale.
Maria touched her shoulder.
“Backup monitoring is stable. She’s okay.”
For now.
Audrey turned back toward Harrison.
“You killed Jonathan.”
Harrison’s face had aged ten years in ten seconds.
“Yes.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“No. Jonathan died before I was born.”
“That is what Eleanor told you.”
“You told me the same thing.”
“I know.”
Evelyn stared at him.
“You let me believe your brother had been dead for years.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Eleanor demanded it.”
Audrey laughed bitterly.
“Another family tradition.”
Harrison flinched.
Dominic stepped forward.
“What does Jonathan have to do with me?”
Harrison looked at him.
Audrey saw something in her grandfather’s eyes she had never seen directed toward Dominic before.
Not contempt.
Recognition.
“Everything.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“Explain.”
Harrison lowered himself into a chair.
For once, nobody interrupted him.
“Our father built medical clinics.”
Audrey frowned.
“I thought you built Vale Health.”
“I built the network.”
“That isn't the same answer.”
“No.”
Harrison looked toward Evelyn.
“Jonathan and I inherited three clinics from our father. Jonathan was the physician. I handled finances.”
“What kind of doctor?” Audrey asked.
“Obstetrics.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
She already understood where this was going.
Harrison continued.
“Jonathan was brilliant. Charismatic. Reckless.”
“And Eleanor?”
“He met her before I did.”
Evelyn’s head snapped up.
“What?”
“She was sixteen.”
“Harrison.”
“You deserve the truth.”
“Apparently thirty-four years late.”
He accepted the blow.
“Eleanor became fascinated with Jonathan’s work. He was researching hereditary pregnancy complications and early genetic screening.”
Audrey felt dread building.
“Was Jonathan Evelyn’s father?”
Harrison looked at Evelyn.
“No.”
She exhaled.
Then Harrison added:
“But he may have been Dominic’s.”
Dominic Mercer went pale.
Audrey stared at him.
If Jonathan was Harrison’s brother, then Dominic would share DNA with Harrison in a pattern that could resemble a close avuncular relationship depending on the analysis—not the simple grandson story they had first assumed.
The preliminary result had been interpreted against an incomplete family tree.
Exactly the kind of mistake Eleanor’s secrets seemed designed to create.
Dominic’s voice was quiet.
“You said Evelyn had me at seventeen.”
“Yes.”
“And Jonathan?”
“Was alive then.”
Evelyn stared at Harrison.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“He would have been—”
“Forty-two.”
Her expression turned to horror.
“No.”
Harrison looked away.
Audrey understood what Evelyn could not say.
“You don't remember the father.”
Evelyn’s face became rigid.
“I remember being pregnant.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
“I don't remember conception.”
The corridor went silent.
Audrey felt sick.
“Why?”
Evelyn’s hands began shaking.
“I was told I had been ill.”
Harrison closed his eyes.
“What kind of illness?”
“Encephalitis.”
“When?”
“The summer I was seventeen.”
“Were you hospitalized?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Eleanor Biomedical.”
Audrey looked at Harrison.
His expression confirmed the terrible possibility.
“That wasn't a hospital.”
“No.”
Evelyn’s voice broke.
“My mother told me I had been unconscious for almost three weeks.”
“And then?”
“Two months later, she told me I was pregnant.”
Dominic stepped backward.
“No.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“I asked who the father was.”
“What did she say?”
“That I had been assaulted while unconscious.”
Nobody moved.
Dominic’s face became empty.
“By Jonathan?”
“I don't know.”
Harrison said quietly, “Jonathan denied it.”
Evelyn turned on him.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“You knew I was pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“You knew there were questions about Jonathan?”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing for thirty-four years?”
“I believed the child died.”
Evelyn slapped him.
Hard.
Security moved instinctively.
Harrison raised one hand.
“No.”
A red mark appeared across his cheek.
He deserved worse.
Audrey said nothing.
Evelyn’s voice shook.
“You stood beside my hospital bed.”
“I know.”
“You brought flowers.”
“I know.”
“You told me my baby was gone.”
“I believed he was.”
“My mother stole my child.”
“Yes.”
“And gave him to Richard.”
“It appears so.”
Dominic leaned against the wall.
For the first time, Audrey saw him looking at Evelyn not as an enemy, but as a possibility.
A mother he had never known.
He whispered:
“Did you want me?”
Evelyn turned.
The question broke her.
“Yes.”
One word.
No hesitation.
“Yes.”
Dominic looked away immediately.
Audrey knew why.
He could survive accusations.
He could survive hatred.
Being wanted was harder.
Harrison wiped blood from the corner of his mouth where Evelyn’s ring had cut him.
Audrey returned to the confession.
“You said you killed Jonathan.”
Harrison nodded.
“How?”
“I shot him.”
Evelyn stared.
“Where?”
“Helix Meridian.”
“When?”
“Thirty-one years ago.”
Three years after Dominic’s birth.
“What happened?”
Harrison looked at the floor.
“After your pregnancy, I began investigating Eleanor.”
Evelyn laughed bitterly.
“Three years late.”
“Yes.”
“What did you find?”
“Embryo records. Genetic samples. falsified births.”
Audrey felt cold.
“And Jonathan?”
“He was helping her.”
“Voluntarily?”
“At first.”
“At first?”
“Later he wanted out.”
“Why?”
“Children began disappearing.”
Audrey stared.
“What children?”
“Infants recorded as stillborn.”
Maria whispered something under her breath.
Harrison continued.
“Some had not died.”
Evelyn covered her mouth.
“They were transferred.”
“To where?”
“Families selected by Eleanor.”
Audrey thought of Richard Mercer.
“How many?”
“I never learned the total.”
“Why would Eleanor do that?”
“Control.”
“Of what?”
“Future ownership. Research access. medical networks. political families.”
Audrey felt nauseated.
“She placed children into influential families?”
“Yes.”
“And tracked them.”
“Yes.”
“And arranged future relationships.”
“Yes.”
A human chessboard stretching across decades.
Natalie.
Dominic.
Audrey.
Perhaps hundreds more.
“What happened at Helix?”
“Jonathan contacted me.”
Harrison’s voice became distant.
“He said he had evidence that could destroy Eleanor.”
“What evidence?”
“Original birth records.”
Audrey looked at the document in her lap.
Harrison nodded.
“Records like that.”
“So you met him.”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“No.”
Audrey already knew.
“Richard.”
“Yes.”
Dominic stared.
“My father was there?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Jonathan panicked.”
“Why?”
“He thought Eleanor had followed him.”
“Had she?”
“I don't know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I still don't.”
Harrison looked at Audrey.
“Jonathan pulled a gun.”
“On you?”
“On Richard.”
“Why?”
“He accused Richard of working for Eleanor.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“Was he?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because Richard had already given me evidence against her.”
Audrey leaned forward.
“Then Jonathan was wrong.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“We fought.”
“And you shot him.”
“Yes.”
“Accident?”
Harrison’s silence lasted too long.
“No.”
Audrey stared.
“You meant to.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He had Richard on the floor.”
“Could you have stopped him another way?”
“I don't know.”
“Did he die immediately?”
“No.”
The answer changed the room.
Audrey felt dread.
“How long did he live?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“And what did you do?”
Harrison’s eyes filled.
“I listened.”
“To what?”
“His confession.”
Evelyn whispered, “About me?”
Harrison looked at her.
“Yes.”
Dominic’s hands clenched.
“What did he say?”
Harrison could barely speak.
“He said he was not your father.”
Evelyn’s eyes closed.
Dominic exhaled.
Audrey frowned.
“Then who was?”
“Jonathan said Eleanor had created the pregnancy.”
Silence.
Audrey felt sick.
“Created?”
“He said she implanted an embryo while Evelyn was sedated.”
Evelyn staggered backward.
Maria caught her.
“No.”
Harrison stood.
“Evelyn—”
“Don't touch me.”
He stopped.
Dominic stared at her.
“So you were…”
“A surrogate without consent,” Maria said quietly.
The words were brutal.
Accurate.
Evelyn began crying without sound.
Audrey looked at Harrison.
“Whose embryo?”
“He didn't know.”
“Or wouldn't tell you?”
“I don't know.”
“Did Jonathan say anything else?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“That Eleanor had created two embryos from the same pairing.”
Dominic looked up.
“Two?”
Harrison nodded.
“One was implanted in Evelyn.”
“And the other?”
“Frozen.”
Audrey felt a new fear.
“Where?”
“Helix Meridian.”
Evelyn wiped her face.
“That facility was destroyed.”
“Most of it.”
“What does that mean?”
Harrison looked toward the evidence files.
“After Jonathan died, Richard and I found that one cryogenic storage unit had been removed.”
“By whom?”
“We believed Eleanor.”
Audrey thought of the stranger upstairs who had claimed to be Alexander.
Eleanor’s experiment.
A man without conventional parents.
Her stomach tightened.
“The second embryo.”
Harrison looked at her.
“You think that man came from it.”
“Yes.”
Evelyn whispered, “That would make him…”
Dominic completed the thought.
“My twin.”
Not identical necessarily.
But created from the same biological pairing.
Audrey remembered the stranger’s face.
Not identical to Dominic.
Yet there had been something.
Something she had interpreted as resemblance to Alexander.
Perhaps she had been looking at the wrong family connection.
“Where is he?” Audrey asked.
The federal investigator checked.
“He was moved to a secured consultation room.”
“Bring him here.”
Harrison shook his head.
“No.”
Audrey turned.
“I am finished accepting your no.”
“Audrey, if he is connected to Eleanor’s experiment—”
“That makes him a victim before it makes him anything else.”
Harrison fell silent.
Dominic looked at Audrey.
For the first time that day, there was something almost like gratitude in his eyes.
She ignored it.
The investigator called security.
No answer.
He tried again.
Nothing.
His expression changed.
“Where is the officer assigned to him?”
He radioed central security.
Static.
Then a reply.
The consultation room was empty.
The guard lay unconscious inside.
Audrey’s blood chilled.
“He escaped?”
“Looks like it.”
Evelyn immediately turned toward the NICU.
“No.”
Audrey followed her gaze.
“What?”
“If he is the second embryo…”
“What?”
“He may know.”
“Know what?”
Evelyn looked at Dominic.
“Why Eleanor created them.”
Dominic’s face tightened.
“Why?”
Evelyn shook her head.
“I need the genetic report.”
The federal investigator handed her the preliminary analysis.
She scanned it.
Then again.
Her expression changed.
“This isn't a normal kinship test.”
“What?”
“There’s an additional marker panel.”
The investigator frowned.
“Our laboratory ran expanded screening because of the archival evidence.”
Evelyn pointed.
“This allele.”
Audrey understood none of it.
“What does it mean?”
Evelyn looked at Dominic.
“Rare immune phenotype.”
“So?”
“My mother was obsessed with it.”
“Why?”
“Transplant compatibility.”
Audrey felt cold.
“With whom?”
Evelyn looked at Harrison.
“Eleanor.”
Harrison frowned.
“She died of cancer.”
“Yes.”
“What does that have to do with Dominic?”
Evelyn’s face changed.
“She wasn't trying to create heirs.”
Everyone went silent.
Audrey whispered, “Then what was she creating?”
“Donors.”
The word was almost inaudible.
Maria stared.
“Children?”
“Genetically selected descendants.”
Dominic looked sick.
“For herself?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
Evelyn looked toward Liam and Chloe.
“For the family line.”
Audrey immediately understood.
Her twins.
Premature.
Medically vulnerable.
Genetically connected to the Vale network.
She gripped the wheelchair.
“Someone wants my children for tissue?”
“I don't know.”
“But it’s possible.”
“Yes.”
The NICU doors suddenly locked.
Red lights flashed above them.
Audrey turned.
“What happened?”
Maria ran to the access panel.
“Security lockdown.”
“Open it.”
“My badge isn't working.”
Inside the NICU, nurses looked toward the door.
Then every internal blind began descending.
“No.”
Audrey wheeled forward.
“NO!”
The glass disappeared behind opaque barriers.
Liam and Chloe vanished from sight.
The intercom activated.
A man’s voice filled the corridor.
The stranger who had called himself Alexander.
“Everyone stay where you are.”
Dominic stepped forward.
“Where are the babies?”
“They’re safe.”
Audrey’s voice became deadly calm.
“Open the doors.”
“I can’t.”
“Then I will tear this hospital apart until I reach them.”
A pause.
Then:
“You really are Catherine’s daughter.”
Audrey gripped the chair.
“What do you want?”
“The truth.”
“We’re all having a difficult day with that.”
Almost a laugh from the speaker.
Then the stranger said:
“Ask Evelyn why Eleanor needed two embryos.”
Evelyn went still.
Dominic looked at her.
“You said one was backup.”
“No.”
The stranger continued.
“One donor is useful.”
Silence.
“Two are experimental.”
Audrey felt cold.
“Experimental for what?”
The stranger answered.
“To see whether memory could be transferred between genetically matched subjects.”
Maria whispered, “That’s impossible.”
“Eleanor disagreed.”
Audrey remembered her missing memories.
Alexander.
Dominic.
Two boys merging inside her mind.
Her blood chilled.
“What did she do to us?”
The stranger ignored the question.
Instead, he said:
“Evelyn, tell Dominic why he remembers a childhood he never lived.”
Dominic froze.
“What?”
Evelyn’s face collapsed.
Dominic stepped toward her.
“What is he talking about?”
Evelyn shook her head.
“No.”
“Tell me.”
“Dominic—”
“Why do I remember Audrey?”
Audrey stopped breathing.
He looked at her.
Tears appeared in his eyes.
“The frog.”
Audrey stared.
“What?”
“The frog you tried to keep in your bedroom.”
Her heart stopped.
Only Alexander had known that story.
Dominic continued.
“You packed cookies.”
“No.”
“And one shoe.”
Audrey backed her wheelchair away from him.
Dominic looked terrified.
“I remember it.”
Evelyn covered her mouth.
“I remember the fountain,” Dominic whispered. “I remember calling you Addie.”
Audrey could not breathe.
Dominic had supposedly never known her as a child.
Yet he remembered things from Alexander’s life.
The intercom crackled.
The stranger spoke one final sentence.
“That’s because Eleanor didn't just steal children.”
A pause.
“She stole their memories.”
Then Chloe’s monitor alarm began screaming from behind the locked doors.