CHAPTER 5 — THE FORTY-SEVENTH CHILD
Federal agents entered Cross House at 12:11 p.m.
There were fourteen of them.
Their leader, Special Agent Daniel Mercer, carried a warrant authorizing the seizure of medical records, computers, and biological samples associated with something called Project Genesis.
The warrant did not authorize them to take me.
It did not authorize them to take my child.
Jonathan had lied about that part.
But as agents began searching the mansion, I realized the truth might be worse.
Project Genesis existed.
Nathaniel did not deny it.
We stood inside the library while agents photographed locked cabinets and removed encrypted drives from a concealed office behind the fireplace.
I stared at Nathaniel.
“You told me you were searching for my mother.”
“I was.”
“You didn’t tell me you were funding genetic experiments.”
“They were not experiments on children.”
“Then what were they?”
His silence pushed me closer to panic.
Agent Mercer approached.
“Mrs. Blackwell, we need a private statement.”
Nathaniel objected immediately.
“She is medically vulnerable.”
“She is also potentially a victim.”
I looked at Mercer.
“Potentially?”
He lowered his voice.
“We recovered documents from Riverton Reproductive Center before the fire.”
“How?”
“A clinic administrator had been cooperating with us.”
“Evelyn?”
“No.”
Mercer looked toward Jonathan, who sat across the room with his attorney.
“Vanessa Vale.”
Jonathan turned sharply.
For once, genuine shock crossed his face.
“Vanessa contacted you?”
“She approached us six weeks ago.”
My mind raced.
The mistress who smiled in court.
The woman wearing my necklace.
The woman who helped Jonathan destroy my life.
“She was working with you?”
“She claimed Blackwell Holdings was financing illegal fertility procedures.”
“Where is she now?”
Mercer’s jaw tightened.
“Missing.”
The last confirmed image of Vanessa showed her leaving Blackwell Tower’s garage without my necklace.
Her phone was found beside the river.
Her car was discovered abandoned near the airport.
No body had been recovered.
Mercer led me into a smaller sitting room.
Dr. Hart remained with me as medical support. Simone joined as my attorney.
An agent placed a thick file on the table.
The cover read:
PROJECT GENESIS — SUBJECT 47
Beneath the title was my name.
Grace Eleanor Hayes.
Not Blackwell.
My maiden name.
My photograph had been taken nearly two years before I met Jonathan.
I stared at it.
“They were watching me.”
Mercer nodded.
“For some time.”
“Who?”
“That is what we are trying to determine.”
I opened the file.
Medical charts filled the pages.
Blood tests I never knew had been performed.
Genetic screening reports.
Psychological assessments.
Notes describing my childhood, relationships, diet, and reproductive health.
Someone had documented my entire life.
A line near the bottom of one page caught my eye.
MATERNAL CANDIDATE COMPATIBILITY: 99.87%
“Compatibility with what?”
Mercer opened another file.
A list of names appeared.
Forty-six women.
Each listed beside a number.
Most had one word stamped across their records.
FAILED.
I felt sick.
“What happened to them?”
“Some procedures did not result in pregnancy.”
“And the others?”
Mercer’s expression warned me before he answered.
“Eleven pregnancies ended in late-term loss.”
My hands moved over my belly.
“Why?”
“We don’t know.”
“Are the mothers alive?”
“Eight are.”
“And the others?”
He did not answer.
I stood too quickly.
The room tilted.
Dr. Hart caught my elbow.
“Grace, sit down.”
“No.”
I looked through the glass doors toward Nathaniel.
“You knew about these women.”
He entered before anyone could stop him.
“I knew the project existed under a different name.”
“What name?”
“Meridian Rare Disease Initiative.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You expect me to believe your company accidentally created forty-seven pregnancies?”
“No pregnancies were authorized.”
“Then why is my file in your house?”
Nathaniel looked at Mercer.
“It wasn’t.”
Mercer nodded.
“The files were recovered from the fertility clinic.”
I faced Nathaniel again.
“What did your project do?”
He removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“After Eleanor disappeared, I became convinced that her death was connected to the pharmaceutical trial she exposed.”
“So you started Genesis?”
“No. I funded research into a rare genetic resistance.”
“Resistance to what?”
Dr. Hart answered.
“The drug involved in the concealed trials caused fatal neurological damage in most patients.”
“Most?”
“A small number showed complete immunity.”
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
I looked at Nathaniel.
“And me?”
“We did not know until recently.”
Mercer turned a page.
“Your genetic profile carries the same resistance marker.”
The baby moved again.
“And my child?”
“May carry an enhanced version.”
I felt as if I could no longer breathe.
Jonathan had called my child designed.
Not conceived.
Designed.
“Who used Nathaniel’s research?”
Mercer looked toward the library.
“Someone inside Cross Meridian.”
Nathaniel’s expression hardened.
“My board.”
“At least one member,” Mercer said. “Possibly several.”
The door opened.
Marcus entered.
“Sir, we located Vanessa.”
“Where?”
“She was admitted under a false name to St. Joseph’s Hospital.”
“Is she alive?”
“For now.”
Vanessa had been found inside a motel room with a gunshot wound in her shoulder and severe blood loss. She asked for me before losing consciousness.
Against every medical recommendation, I went to the hospital.
Nathaniel’s security team surrounded the entire floor.
Vanessa looked nothing like the woman from court.
Her skin was gray. Her hair stuck to her forehead. Tubes ran into both arms. A bandage covered her shoulder.
Her eyes opened when I entered.
“Grace.”
I remained several feet from the bed.
“Where is my necklace?”
She gave a faint laugh that became a cough.
“Still worried about jewelry?”
“It belonged to my mother.”
“I know.”
Her eyes moved toward Nathaniel.
“You were supposed to find her sooner.”
Nathaniel’s face went still.
“You knew Eleanor?”
“No.”
Vanessa looked back at me.
“But my father did.”
“Gabriel Vale?”
Her lips trembled.
“He wasn’t your father.”
Dr. Hart stepped forward.
“What?”
“Gabriel couldn’t have children.”
The room became silent.
“Then why was he involved with my mother?” I asked.
“He was her doctor.”
Nathaniel gripped his cane.
“Who was Grace’s father?”
Vanessa’s heart monitor quickened.
She looked toward the door.
“Lock it.”
Marcus locked the room.
Vanessa struggled to sit up.
“Jonathan thinks the baby was created from preserved material belonging to Gabriel Vale.”
“Was it?” I asked.
“No.”
“Then whose genetic material was used?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I never knew the donor’s name.”
“Donor?” I whispered.
“The samples were labeled by number.”
“What number?”
“Genesis Prime.”
Nathaniel took a step backward.
Dr. Hart stared at him.
“No.”
Vanessa looked at me with pity.
“The project began long before the fertility clinic.”
“When?”
“Twenty-five years ago.”
The timeline struck all of us.
Before I was born.
Before my mother disappeared.
Vanessa’s breathing became shallow.
“My father wasn’t developing the drug.”
“What was he doing?” Nathaniel asked.
“Creating a bloodline that could survive it.”
My stomach tightened painfully.
Vanessa looked at me.
“Your mother wasn’t a random carrier. She was selected.”
“Selected by whom?”
Vanessa began crying.
“Alexander Cross.”
My grandfather.
The man listed as my father.
The founder of Cross Meridian.
Nathaniel’s face turned white.
“My father died before Project Genesis began.”
“No,” Vanessa whispered.
“He made everyone believe he did.”
The monitor alarm began beeping.
Nurses rushed into the room.
Before they forced us back, Vanessa grabbed my wrist with surprising strength.
“The necklace opens his vault.”
“What vault?”
“The original laboratory.”
“Where is it?”
Her fingers slipped.
“Hawthorne Lake.”
The lake from the childhood photograph.
The lake outside Cross House.
The nurses pushed us out as Vanessa’s heart stopped.
Doctors began CPR behind the closing door.
I stood in the hallway with Nathaniel.
Neither of us spoke.
The man we believed dead for twenty-five years might still be alive.
He might have arranged my mother’s disappearance.
He might have manipulated my marriage.
He might have designed the child inside me.
Marcus received a message.
His face became grim.
“What now?” Nathaniel asked.
“A security team searched the lake property.”
“And?”
“They found an underground entrance.”
“Was it sealed?”
“No.”
Marcus looked directly at me.
“The door was open.”
Nathaniel’s expression darkened.
“Someone already used the necklace.”
I understood before he finished.
Vanessa had not abandoned it.
May you like
Jonathan had taken it from her.
And at that moment, my ex-husband was somewhere beneath Hawthorne Lake, entering a laboratory built by a dead man.
