Chapter 5 - Seven Months AgoI woke in another hospital room.
Marcus was sitting beside me.
His shirt was covered in dust.
His knuckles were bleeding.
Security had broken the lock after finding us unconscious.
The hospital claimed there had been a malfunction in the ventilation system.
Nobody believed that.
I asked for the police.
Marcus asked for Daniel.
No one could find him.
Not officially.
Because according to every legal record, Daniel Cross was dead.
Then a nurse arrived with an envelope.
“For Mrs. Vale.”
Inside was a photograph.
It showed me seven months earlier.
The night before I married Marcus.
I was standing outside a private clinic.
Daniel stood beside me.
My stomach tightened.
I remembered.
I had gone there.
But the memory was incomplete.
I had been told I was receiving emergency treatment after collapsing.
I remembered Daniel holding my hand.
I remembered someone saying,
“Everything will be fine.”
I did not remember leaving.
Marcus stared at the photograph.
“You told me you hadn't seen him after the breakup.”
“I thought I hadn't.”
He looked hurt.
Not angry.
That made it worse.
“I remember the clinic,” I whispered. “But I don't remember why I was there.”
Then another memory surfaced.
A needle.
A white room.
A woman's voice.
“Sleep now, Khloe.”
I suddenly sat up.
“I was sedated.”
Marcus froze.
“What?”
“I was sedated at the clinic.”
“By who?”
“I don't know.”
He took my hand.
“Then we're going to find out.”
The envelope contained a second item.
A small hospital bracelet.
KHLOE MERCER.
I stared at it.
Mercer.
Claire Mercer.
The same name from the DNA file.
Then everything clicked.
Maybe Claire Mercer was not a random woman.
Maybe she was connected to my medical record.
The police traced the clinic.
It had been shut down two years earlier.
Its records were destroyed.
Except one digital backup.
A technician recovered it.
The file contained a pregnancy transfer report.
Patient A: Claire Mercer.
Patient B: Khloe Vale.
Transfer date: seven months ago.
Embryo status: viable.
I stared at the line.
“What does this mean?”
The technician hesitated.
“You may have been carrying an embryo that originally belonged to another woman.”
Marcus looked at me.
“Then whose baby is it?”
Nobody answered.
The technician opened another file.
There was a note.
TRANSFER AUTHORIZED BY EVELYN VALE.
My blood went cold.
Marcus stepped back.
“My mother did this.”
A police officer entered.
“There’s one more problem.”
He placed a photo on the table.
It showed Claire Mercer.
She was standing outside a house.
Alive.
Marcus looked stunned.
“But the clinic report says she died.”
The officer nodded.
“That is the problem.”
The photograph had been taken yesterday.
Claire Mercer was alive.
She was holding a little boy’s hand.
The boy looked about five years old.
The officer pointed to him.
“His name is Noah.”
I stared at the child.
Something about his face felt familiar.
Then the officer said,
“According to the clinic's original genetic records, Noah is Claire Mercer's son.”
He paused.
“And Daniel Cross is listed as his biological father.”
Marcus looked at me.
Then at the photograph.
May you like
And suddenly, I understood why Daniel had said the baby wasn't the problem.
The baby was the evidence.
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