Chapter 3 - The Four Missing Embryos
For several seconds, I could not breathe.
The hospital corridor remained bright and orderly, yet everything around me seemed to tilt.
Four embryos.
Four possibilities Julian had told me no longer existed.
Four pieces of my future had disappeared while I was drowning in the belief that my body had failed me.
I looked at him.
Julian was still holding the paternity report, but the paper had gone limp between his fingers.
“You told me they were destroyed.”
His throat moved.
“That’s what the clinic told us.”
“The original inventory says otherwise.”
“I didn’t know.”
Dr. Vance watched him closely.
The federal investigator stepped forward.
“Mr. Mercer, do not leave this floor.”
Julian looked offended.
“Am I under arrest?”
“Not at this time.”
“Then I’m leaving.”
The investigator moved into his path.
“That would be unwise.”
Sienna continued holding the crying child. Evan stood several feet away, his face pale as he studied the little boy he had believed dead.
The baby reached toward him.
It was a small, instinctive movement.
But it shattered something in Evan’s expression.
He stepped forward, then stopped himself.
“I need proof,” he said.
“You’ll have it,” Dr. Vance replied. “A legally supervised test can be arranged.”
Julian let out a hollow laugh.
“You think you can walk in here and take my son?”
Evan turned toward him.
“He isn’t your son.”
“I raised him.”
“For one year.”
“I was there when he was born.”
“You were there because she lied to me.”
“Both of you, stop,” Sienna pleaded.
Julian spun toward her.
“You don’t get to tell anyone to stop.”
The baby cried harder.
A nurse hurried forward and asked Sienna to lower her voice for the child’s sake.
Sienna ignored her.
“This is Clara’s fault,” she said suddenly.
The accusation was so absurd that no one spoke.
Then she looked directly at me.
“If you had accepted the divorce and moved on, none of this would be happening.”
I stared at her.
“You altered my records.”
“I didn’t alter anything.”
“You knew they were altered.”
“I only knew Julian said you couldn’t have children.”
“You sat beside me while I was told my treatment had failed.”
Her eyes flickered.
“I was trying to help you.”
“You held my hand while someone erased my future.”
“That wasn’t my decision.”
The words slipped out.
Julian turned slowly toward her.
“What wasn’t your decision?”
Sienna’s mouth closed.
The investigator noticed.
“So someone did make a decision.”
She shook her head.
“I’m done talking.”
“You may want an attorney,” he said.
Julian’s eyes narrowed.
“An attorney? She needs an attorney?”
“So do you.”
The hospital administrator led Dr. Vance and me into a private consultation room. The investigators followed. Julian demanded to join us, but security prevented him from entering until he surrendered his phone.
Sienna was taken to another room with the child.
Evan remained outside.
When the door closed, the administrator placed the tablet on the table.
“My name is Rebecca Sloan,” she said. “I oversee compliance for St. Jude’s reproductive medicine division.”
She looked uncomfortable, but not evasive.
“The original clinic where you received treatment was privately owned by the Halston Women’s Institute. St. Jude’s acquired its records after the institute closed seven months ago.”
“Why did it close?”
Rebecca exchanged a glance with Dr. Vance.
“Financial misconduct, regulatory violations, and the disappearance of its medical director.”
“Who was the medical director?”
“Dr. Malcolm Keene.”
I remembered him immediately.
He had been Julian’s preferred physician.
Dr. Keene spoke softly, dressed impeccably, and always directed his explanations toward Julian rather than me. Whenever I asked questions, he assured me that stress would worsen my chances of pregnancy.
I used to leave his office feeling guilty for needing answers.
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“No one knows.”
The investigator, Agent Marcus Bell, opened a folder.
“Dr. Keene left the United States two weeks before the institute’s closure. We believe he used several identities and maintained accounts in the Cayman Islands.”
I looked at Julian.
He sat across from me, his phone sealed inside an evidence pouch.
“Did you know?”
“No.”
Agent Bell slid a document toward him.
“Your company transferred six hundred thousand dollars to a consulting firm controlled by Dr. Keene.”
Julian’s face did not change.
“My company pays hundreds of consultants.”
“This payment was authorized by your personal signature.”
“I sign what my financial team prepares.”
The agent placed another page beside it.
“The payment description was ‘succession assurance.’”
My stomach tightened.
Julian leaned forward.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“I think you do,” I said.
He looked at me.
“Clara, I swear—”
“Don’t use my name as if we’re still married.”
For once, he obeyed.
Rebecca enlarged a record on the tablet.
“This is the embryo storage log. Six embryos were created during your second treatment cycle. You were told none developed successfully.”
“I remember.”
“In reality, all six reached the stage required for preservation.”
My vision blurred.
I pressed my fingertips against the table.
“Six?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to them?”
“Two were marked as transferred.”
I looked up.
“Transferred to whom?”
“We don’t know. The recipient identification numbers were deleted.”
Julian’s expression sharpened.
“Recipient?”
Dr. Vance answered.
“Someone may have implanted embryos created from Clara’s genetic material.”
The sentence struck me harder than the infertility report.
Somewhere, a child carrying my DNA might exist.
Perhaps two children.
Children I had never held.
Children who might not know I existed.
“What about the remaining four?” I asked.
“They were removed from storage nine days before your divorce was filed.”
“Removed by whom?”
Rebecca turned the tablet toward Julian.
The digital authorization form displayed his name.
JULIAN MERCER.
His electronic signature appeared beneath the release request.
I looked at him.
He stared at the screen.
“That isn’t my signature.”
“It matches your signature on thirty-seven other clinic documents,” Agent Bell said.
“It was copied.”
“Possibly.”
Julian’s eyes lifted toward mine.
“I didn’t do this.”
A year earlier, I would have searched his face for reasons to believe him.
Now I searched for evidence of the next lie.
“What was the purpose of ‘succession assurance’?” I asked.
“I told you, I don’t know.”
“You spent years telling me you needed an heir.”
“That doesn’t mean I stole embryos.”
“You divorced me three days after my final failed procedure.”
“Because our marriage was over.”
“You announced Sienna’s pregnancy six weeks later.”
“She was already pregnant.”
“With another man’s child.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Yet you called him your miracle.”
Julian’s hand struck the table.
“I was deceived too.”
Agent Bell’s voice hardened.
“Keep your hands visible.”
Julian leaned back.
Dr. Vance studied the records again.
“There is another inconsistency.”
Rebecca nodded.
“The two transferred embryos were not listed as belonging to Clara and Julian Mercer.”
My chest tightened.
“What names were used?”
She enlarged the archived form.
The patient line displayed two names I had never seen.
Lydia and James Vale.
“Those people don’t exist,” Agent Bell said. “The identities were created using documents belonging to two deceased patients.”
“Who authorized the transfer?” I asked.
Rebecca scrolled lower.
“Dr. Malcolm Keene.”
“And who requested the false identities?”
“That field was erased.”
Julian exhaled.
“So you have nothing connecting me to it.”
Agent Bell closed the folder.
“We have your payment, your signature, your insurance account, and evidence that you benefited from your wife being declared infertile.”
“How did I benefit?”
I answered before the agent could.
“The foundation.”
Julian became still.
The Clara Mercer Family Foundation had begun as my project. I created it after my mother died from an undiagnosed heart condition. Its purpose was to provide medical care for women and children who could not afford private treatment.
The foundation had grown quickly.
Donations increased.
Hospitals partnered with us.
Then Julian convinced me that placing the organization under Mercer Holdings would protect it from liability.
During the divorce, he argued that my emotional instability made me unfit to manage it.
Sienna testified against me.
Julian took control.
“If I had become pregnant,” I said, “the foundation’s succession clause would have protected my voting authority.”
Agent Bell nodded.
“We reviewed the original charter. If Clara had a biological child, controlling rights would remain with her family line.”
Julian stared at him.
“That clause was symbolic.”
“It controlled assets worth nearly eighty million dollars,” I said.
The number silenced the room.
The foundation owned treatment centers, research grants, and property donated by wealthy benefactors. I had never viewed those assets as personal wealth.
Julian had.
“If Clara was declared permanently infertile,” Agent Bell continued, “the succession clause became inactive. Control transferred to the spouse serving as corporate trustee.”
Julian.
The plan suddenly made terrible sense.
My infertility had not only ended my marriage.
It had given him control of everything I built.
“Where are the four embryos?” I asked again.
Rebecca looked at the agent.
“We traced the storage courier.”
“And?”
“The transport company delivered a cryogenic container to a private research facility outside Albany.”
“Does the facility still have them?”
“No.”
My heart sank.
“The facility closed six months ago. Its records were destroyed in a fire.”
Julian leaned back as if that proved his innocence.
But Agent Bell did not look discouraged.
“The fire destroyed the building,” he said. “Not the courier’s GPS archive.”
He opened a map on his tablet.
“The container never arrived at the Albany facility.”
A route appeared across the screen.
The courier vehicle had left the clinic, traveled north, then stopped for forty-one minutes at a private airport.
From there, another transport authorization had been issued.
Destination: Switzerland.
I stared at the document.
“Who owns the receiving facility?”
Agent Bell tapped the screen.
A corporate name appeared.
Vale Reproductive Genetics.
The false surname used on the embryo-transfer forms.
Julian’s face changed.
It was subtle.
But I saw recognition.
“You know that name,” I said.
“No.”
“You do.”
“I said no.”
Agent Bell slid a photograph across the table.
It showed Julian stepping out of a black car beside Dr. Malcolm Keene.
Behind them stood the glass entrance of Vale Reproductive Genetics in Geneva.
The timestamp was six months before our divorce.
Julian did not speak.
I felt no satisfaction.
Only cold realization.
He had traveled to Geneva while telling me he was negotiating a business acquisition in London.
“You were there,” I whispered.
He stared at the photograph.
Then he looked at Agent Bell.
“I want my attorney.”
The agent nodded.
“That is your right.”
Julian stood.
Security moved closer.
Before he left the room, he turned toward me.
His face was no longer smug.
It was calculating.
“Clara, you don’t understand what you’re uncovering.”
“Then explain it.”
“I can’t.”
“Because you’re guilty?”
His jaw tightened.
“Because if Keene knows you found those records, you’re not the only person in danger.”
The door opened behind him.
Agent Bell motioned for security to escort him out.
I watched Julian reach the threshold.
Then I asked the question that stopped him.
“Were children born from my embryos?”
His back stiffened.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
When he finally turned, the fear in his eyes was real.
“Yes.”
My heart seemed to stop.
“How many?”
Julian looked at Agent Bell, then at Dr. Vance.
“Two that I know of.”
My fingers gripped the table.
“Where are they?”
He swallowed.
“One is in Europe.”
“And the other?”
May you like
Julian’s gaze moved toward the wall separating us from the room where Sienna waited with the baby.
“The other child,” he said, “has been closer to you than you think.”
