Chapter 3 - THE LOCKED ROOMThe police searched the Vance mansion until sunrise.
Every drawer.
Every closet.
Every floorboard.
They found nothing else.
Except the second knife.
It was hidden behind a loose panel in the room I had planned to turn into a nursery.
I had never told anyone about that room.
Or at least, I thought I hadn't.
The detective placed photographs on the hospital table.
The knife was larger than the one Flynn had used.
Black handle.
Long silver blade.
There was a dark stain near the tip.
“Whose blood?” I asked.
“We're testing it.”
Flynn stood near the window.
He hadn't spoken for ten minutes.
Finally, he said:
“Could it belong to Selina?”
The detective looked at him.
“We'll know soon.”
Flynn turned away.
I watched his reflection in the glass.
He looked like a stranger.
Then my lawyer arrived.
Her name was Evelyn Hart.
She had represented my family for years.
She sat beside me.
“You want a divorce?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want money?”
“No.”
She frowned.
“Protection?”
“Yes.”
“That I can give you.”
She pulled out a folder.
“I've already reviewed your marital agreement.”
I stared at her.
“I signed a prenup.”
“You did.”
“What do I get?”
“Nothing.”
Flynn had made sure of that.
The agreement was brutal.
If I initiated divorce, I would receive almost nothing.
But Evelyn turned another page.
“There is an exception.”
I looked at her.
“If your husband commits a felony against you, the financial provisions become void.”
My heart stopped.
“He committed a felony.”
Evelyn's expression tightened.
“Then we have a much stronger case than I expected.”
Flynn suddenly walked over.
“You're not divorcing me.”
I looked at him.
“You don't get to decide that.”
He knelt beside the bed.
“Please.”
“No.”
“I can fix this.”
“You can't.”
“I'll give you anything.”
I stared into his eyes.
“Give me my children back.”
He broke.
Tears spilled down his face.
For a second, I almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
Then the hospital door opened.
Dr. Reed walked in holding another file.
“Mabel, I need to talk to you privately.”
Flynn immediately stood.
“I'll stay.”
“No.”
Dr. Reed looked at him.
“This concerns her medical history.”
Flynn reluctantly left.
The moment the door closed, Dr. Reed lowered his voice.
“There is a complication.”
“What?”
“The twins may not have died because of the stabbing.”
I froze.
“What are you saying?”
“The trauma contributed. But before the surgery, we found signs that something had already gone wrong.”
My stomach turned.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because we were waiting for toxicology.”
“Toxicology?”
He opened the file.
“The blood sample we took from you showed traces of a sedative.”
I stared at him.
“I wasn't taking anything.”
“We know.”
“Then how did it get into my blood?”
“That is what we're trying to determine.”
My mind raced.
The dizziness I had felt that afternoon.
The strange weakness.
I had thought it was shock.
But maybe it wasn't.
Dr. Reed continued.
“You may have been drugged before the stabbing.”
“By whom?”
“We don't know.”
I thought of Selina.
Then Flynn.
Then the second knife.
“Could the sedative have caused the miscarriage?”
Dr. Reed hesitated.
“Potentially.”
I closed my eyes.
Someone had not merely stabbed me.
Someone may have poisoned me first.
My babies might have been dying before Flynn ever raised the knife.
And suddenly a horrifying thought came to me.
“What if someone wanted me pregnant?”
Dr. Reed looked confused.
“Why would anyone?”
I remembered something.
Three weeks before the incident, Flynn had asked me a strange question.
“What would you do if we could never have children?”
I had laughed.
“We can.”
He hadn't laughed.
He had simply stared at me.
Then Selina had called.
And he left.
I opened my eyes.
“Doctor…”
“Yes?”
“Did the twins have any genetic abnormalities?”
“No.”
“Anything unusual?”
He hesitated.
“Yes.”
My heart pounded.
“What?”
“The pregnancy was unusually healthy.”
“That isn't unusual.”
“No.”
He looked at me carefully.
“What was unusual was that both fetuses appeared to have identical genetic markers.”
I frowned.
“They're twins.”
“Not necessarily.”
He closed the file.
“Your twins may have been identical.”
A chill moved through me.
I didn't understand why that mattered.
Then Dr. Reed said something I would never forget.
“We also found something else in the fetal tissue.”
“What?”
“A foreign DNA marker.”
I stared at him.
“Whose?”
“We don't know.”
He looked toward the door.
“But, Mabel…”
His voice dropped.
“The DNA wasn't from Flynn.”
My breathing stopped.
He continued.
“It wasn't yours either.”
Someone else had contributed biological material to my unborn children.
Someone who should not have existed in their medical records.
Someone who had been connected to my pregnancy before Flynn even knew it existed.
Then the hospital lights suddenly went out.
The room went black.
For three seconds, there was silence.
Then the emergency lights came on.
Dr. Reed looked at the monitor.
One of my files was missing.
A single file.
The toxicology report.
He turned pale.
“Someone was in here.”
The door opened.
A nurse screamed from the hallway.
May you like
And from somewhere inside the hospital came a man's voice:
“Find Mabel Vance.”
