CHAPTER 4 — THE MAN IN THE WHITE COAT
Agent Brooks sprinted after Dr. Voss.
Two federal agents followed her into the stairwell while nurses surrounded Elena’s incubator.
“What was in the syringe?” I cried.
Dr. Reeves disconnected the line.
“We don’t know yet.”
“Is it poison?”
“Mara, I need you to let us work.”
The NICU team moved with frightening speed. One nurse drew blood. Another replaced the medication tubing. Dr. Reeves studied Elena’s heart rhythm as numbers flashed across the monitor.
I sat helplessly in the wheelchair, unable to reach my child.
Nora placed a hand on my shoulder.
“He knew you were here,” she whispered.
“He knew Elena was here.”
The thought filled me with a kind of rage I had never experienced before.
Daniel had struck me.
Victor had used my body as a laboratory.
Lenora had applauded while I bled.
But Dr. Voss had walked into the NICU and tried to harm a premature baby.
My daughter.
Dr. Reeves injected medication into Elena’s IV.
Her oxygen level continued dropping.
“Come on,” he murmured. “Come on, little girl.”
The monitor slowed.
I gripped Nora’s hand so tightly that my nails cut into her skin.
“Please.”
The number rose by one.
Then another.
Elena’s chest moved beneath the blanket.
The alarm softened.
Dr. Reeves released a long breath.
“She’s responding.”
My entire body sagged.
“What did he give her?”
“We need the laboratory to confirm it, but based on her reaction, I suspect a sedative. In her condition, even a small dose could have stopped her breathing.”
“He tried to kill her.”
Dr. Reeves did not answer.
He did not have to.
Ten minutes later, Agent Brooks returned alone.
“He escaped through a restricted service tunnel connected to the old research wing.”
“How does a closed department have an open tunnel?”
“Someone on hospital security disabled the locks.”
The Ashfords still had loyal employees everywhere.
Brooks looked at the syringe sealed inside an evidence bag.
“We’re placing agents inside and outside this unit. No one enters without clearance.”
“He knew exactly where Elena was,” I said.
“He accessed the electronic patient system.”
“That information was supposed to be protected.”
“It was.”
Nora laughed bitterly.
“Protected by software owned by Ashford Technologies.”
Brooks looked at the flash drive in my hand.
“We need to review that immediately.”
Nora nodded this time.
An agent brought a secured laptop into an empty consultation room beside the NICU. I refused to go far from Elena, so the door remained open while we loaded the files.
The drive contained hundreds of folders.
Each was identified by a letter and number.
N-03.
R-07.
M-12.
My folder.
Agent Brooks opened it.
Photographs of me appeared on the screen.
Not medical photographs.
Personal photographs.
Me leaving work.
Me buying groceries.
Me running in a park years before the pregnancy.
Someone had followed me long before Daniel and I met.
There were copies of my college transcripts, my childhood medical records, and genetic information from a blood donation I made when I was twenty-one.
“They stole my DNA,” I whispered.
Brooks opened another document.
CANDIDATE M-12 possesses optimal mitochondrial stability, low hereditary cancer risk, and target neurological markers. Recommended for Pairing Group Alpha.
“Pairing?” I asked.
Dr. Reeves leaned closer to the screen.
“They may have selected both biological parents according to specific traits.”
“Daniel is Elena’s father.”
No one replied.
My skin went cold.
“He is her father,” I repeated.
Brooks clicked a file labeled PATERNAL CONTRIBUTOR.
A photograph appeared.
It was not Daniel.
The man in the photograph had dark hair, green eyes, and a small scar above his left eyebrow. His name was listed beneath the image.
DR. ELIAS WARD.
Status: Deceased.
I stared at the words until they blurred.
“They used another man’s DNA?”
Dr. Reeves looked sick.
“If this document is genuine, yes.”
I felt as though the floor had disappeared.
Daniel had forced me through treatment because he claimed he desperately wanted a child. He attended every appointment. He held my hand during the embryo transfer.
All the while, he knew the baby was not biologically his.
“Why?” I asked.
Brooks opened Elias Ward’s profile.
“He was a molecular geneticist employed by Ashford Biomedical Research.”
Nora leaned toward the screen.
“I’ve seen him before.”
“Where?”
“In one of Voss’s videos.”
We searched the folders until Nora found it.
The recording was dated five years earlier.
Elias Ward stood inside a laboratory arguing with Dr. Voss. The audio crackled, but his anger was unmistakable.
“You told these women they were receiving approved treatment,” Elias said. “You never told them you were editing viable embryos.”
Voss remained calm.
“The procedure is working.”
“Children are getting sick.”
“Early failures are expected.”
“They are not failures. They are human beings.”
Victor Ashford entered the frame.
Even on a grainy recording, his presence changed the room.
“You signed a confidentiality agreement, Dr. Ward.”
“I’m going to the FDA.”
Victor smiled.
“No, you’re not.”
The video ended.
Brooks searched Elias’s name through a federal database.
“He died three days later.”
“How?”
“Single-vehicle crash. His car went over a bridge.”
Another accident.
Another inconvenient person eliminated.
Dr. Reeves examined the medical data.
“Elias may have discovered that E-47 was causing genetic instability. Perhaps he tried to stop the program.”
“Then why use him as a biological contributor?”
Nora opened another document.
At the top was Victor’s personal authorization code.
WARD GENETIC PROFILE RETAINED FOR ALPHA LINE.
Below it was a note.
Intelligence markers exceed all prior candidates. Reproductive material secured before termination.
I turned away and vomited into a wastebasket.
They had killed a man, stored his genetic material, and used it to create children without anyone’s consent.
Elena was not the product of Daniel’s love.
She was the result of Victor’s obsession with designing an heir.
Agent Brooks closed the laptop.
“This changes the entire investigation.”
“Does Elena have the same illness as Jamie?” I asked.
Dr. Reeves hesitated.
“We need tests.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“There is a possibility.”
I looked through the open doorway at my daughter.
She slept beneath the incubator lights, unaware that powerful people had decided her entire existence before she took her first breath.
“She is not an experiment,” I said.
“No,” Nora agreed. “She’s a child.”
Brooks’s phone rang.
She answered, listened, and looked at me.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Daniel is asking to speak with you.”
“No.”
“He says he has information about Voss.”
“He can tell you.”
“He refuses. He says he’ll only speak to his wife.”
“I’m not his wife anymore.”
“Legally, you still are.”
The words made my stomach twist.
I looked at Elena again.
Daniel had known about Project Eden. He had selected me, deceived me, and allowed his father to use my body.
But he might know where Voss had gone.
“Arrange the call.”
Brooks placed a secured tablet on the table.
Daniel appeared on the screen from a federal holding room. His tie was gone. His hair was disordered. A bruise darkened one cheek where he had apparently struck something—or someone—during his arrest.
When he saw me, relief crossed his face.
“Mara.”
“Where is Voss?”
“I need you to help me first.”
“You punched me in the stomach.”
His eyes moved away.
“I lost control.”
“You could have killed Elena.”
“Elena?”
“Our daughter.”
Daniel’s expression hardened.
“You named her without me?”
A laugh escaped me.
Even now, he believed his opinion mattered.
“Voss tried to kill her.”
For the first time, Daniel looked truly shocked.
“What?”
“He injected something into her IV.”
“That wasn’t part of the plan.”
The room became silent.
Agent Brooks leaned closer.
“What plan?” I asked.
Daniel realized his mistake.
“I meant my father’s plan.”
“You knew something was supposed to happen at the hospital.”
He shook his head.
“Mara, listen to me. My father has contingencies. If the investigation ever became public, Voss was supposed to remove the evidence.”
“Evidence meaning records?”
Daniel looked directly at me.
“Evidence meaning the children.”
Nora made a broken sound beside me.
“Where is he?” Brooks demanded.
Daniel swallowed.
“There’s an Ashford research property in northern Vermont. It isn’t under the company name. It belongs to a foundation based in Luxembourg.”
“Address?”
“I’ll give it to you after Mara makes a statement.”
“What statement?”
“That the punch was an accident.”
My mouth fell open.
Daniel leaned toward the camera.
“Tell them you slipped. Tell them the videos are misleading. Spousal privilege can protect our conversations, and my lawyers can separate me from my father’s financial charges.”
“You think I’m going to save you?”
“I can save Elena.”
“You just said Voss was sent to destroy children.”
“I can tell you where the others are.”
Nora stepped into view.
“My daughter?”
Daniel’s face changed when he recognized her.
“Nora Bell.”
“Where is Lily?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“I know Voss kept some children at the Vermont property, but I never visited.”
Nora pressed both hands against the table.
“If you know anything—”
Daniel ignored her and looked at me.
“One statement, Mara. Say the assault was a misunderstanding, and I’ll give Brooks everything.”
I studied the man I had once loved.
He believed desperation would turn me back into the obedient woman he married.
He believed motherhood would make me weak.
He had never understood that becoming Elena’s mother had made me more dangerous than I had ever been.
“Fine,” I said.
Agent Brooks looked at me sharply.
Daniel smiled.
“I knew you’d be reasonable.”
“I’ll make a statement.”
He leaned back, victorious.
I moved closer to the tablet.
“My statement is that Daniel Ashford knowingly participated in an illegal medical experiment, concealed evidence of child endangerment, and attempted to bargain with the lives of kidnapped children.”
His smile vanished.
“You stupid—”
Agent Brooks ended the call.
Almost immediately, her phone chimed.
She looked at the message.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Daniel’s attorney just transmitted coordinates.”
“He gave in?”
“No. Someone else inside the detention center sent them from his account.”
The coordinates pointed to a remote property in Vermont.
Attached was a two-word message.
FIND LILY.
May you like
At the bottom was a name none of us expected.
Celeste Monroe.
