Chapter 10 - The Man Who Claimed EmmaI ran into Emma's room.
A security officer stood outside.
“He left?”
The nurse nodded.
“He showed identification.”
“Who was he?”
She gave me the name.
Lucas Mercer.
Christopher's face went pale when he heard it.
“My son.”
I looked at him.
“You have a son?”
“He disappeared years ago.”
Detective Cole moved quickly.
“Describe him.”
Christopher gave the description.
The security guard checked the cameras.
“He came at 8:58 p.m.”
“Did he enter Emma's room?”
“No. He demanded to see her.”
“Did he leave alone?”
The guard nodded.
Detective Cole reviewed the footage.
Lucas had not come to hurt Emma.
He had come carrying an envelope.
And before leaving, he slipped something under the nurses' station.
We found it.
Inside was a photograph.
Lucas was standing beside a young woman.
Claire.
One of the two other children.
On the back was a message.
You're looking in the wrong place.
Then a second photograph.
Noah.
And a final note:
The fourth child was never reported.
I looked at Christopher.
“What fourth child?”
His expression turned grim.
“I don't know.”
My mother was brought into the room under police supervision.
Detective Cole confronted her.
“Who is the fourth child?”
She said nothing.
My mother had been silent before.
Now she looked genuinely frightened.
Christopher stepped toward her.
“You didn't.”
She looked at him.
“You stayed away.”
“I should have killed the project.”
“You couldn't.”
“I could have exposed you.”
“And you would have destroyed the children.”
Christopher stopped.
“What did you do?”
My mother closed her eyes.
“The fourth embryo was never implanted.”
I felt relief for half a second.
Then she continued.
“It was sold.”
Silence.
“To whom?” Detective Cole asked.
“I don't know.”
“You're lying.”
“I am not.”
“Then who bought it?”
My mother looked at me.
“That was the part I never controlled.”
Detective Cole's phone rang.
He listened.
Then his expression changed.
“What?”
He walked away.
Returned thirty seconds later.
“We found the buyer.”
“Who?”
He looked at Christopher.
“Your son.”
My heart sank.
“Lucas?”
“Yes.”
Christopher looked shattered.
“How?”
“He purchased it through a private broker.”
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
I stared at Emma's hospital bed.
“Why would Lucas buy an embryo?”
Christopher shook his head.
“I don't know.”
Detective Cole received another message.
He opened it.
Then frowned.
“Rachel, you need to see this.”
It was a photograph from an old clinic.
A woman was holding a newborn baby.
The date was four years ago.
The woman's face was blurred.
But the baby had the same distinctive birthmark Emma had.
I stared.
“No.”
Detective Cole zoomed in.
The child had been born three months before Emma's attack.
The medical record listed no mother.
Just:
Project H-4.
Christopher whispered:
“My God.”
“What?”
“That isn't an embryo.”
I turned.
“What is it?”
He looked at the photograph.
“It's a child.”
A living child.
A fourth one.
And someone had been raising that child in secret.
Then another message arrived.
May you like
This time from Lucas.
Come alone. I know who has the baby.
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