“You weren’t pregnant.”
“I know.” “You would have told me.” “I couldn’t.” “You dropped off your children ten days ago wearing jeans and a sweater. You were not pregnant.” Emily began crying.
“Mom, I said she’s mine. I didn’t say I gave birth to her.”
Two unmarked cars arrived five minutes later. Detective Cole entered first. She was in her late 40s, short, with gray hair beginning at her temples and a voice that never rose. A woman from Child Protection came in behind her carrying an infant medical bag. They examined the ankle band without removing it.
Then they turned off every phone in the house.
Mine. The officers’. Even the television.
Detective Cole placed them inside a metal evidence case. “What is happening?” I asked.
“The tracker is transmitting,” she said.
“To whom?” “We’re trying to find out.” Emily shook her head. “Bellweather.” Cole looked at her.
“You know that?”
“I saw the monitor.” “What monitor?” “The one with all the babies.” The child protection worker took the newborn from Emily. For the first time, my daughter resisted.
Her arms tightened.
“She’s sick.” “We need to check her.” “You can’t take her to County General.”
“Why not?” “Voss has people there.”
Detective Cole leaned forward.
“Emily, you need to start at the beginning.” My daughter stared at the floor, then she looked toward the stairs. “Not in front of Noah and Lily.” I took the children upstairs. Noah stopped me outside the bedroom.
“Is that our sister?”
The question hurt more than it should have. “I don’t know.” “Mom said her name is Grace.” I looked back toward the stairs. “When did she tell you that?”
“Before she left.”
My hand tightened on the railing. “Ten days ago?”
Noah nodded. “She said if she came back with a baby, we had to be nice because the baby had been alone.” Emily had known.
Whatever happened had not begun during those ten days.
She had planned it. When I returned downstairs, Detective Cole had placed a recorder on the coffee table. Emily sat with a blanket around her shoulders. The newborn slept in a portable bassinet beside her. I stayed near the doorway.
Emily took a breath.
“Three months ago, I received a letter.” “From whom?” Cole asked. “It wasn’t signed.” “What did it say?” “That one of my embryos had survived.”
I stopped breathing.
Five years earlier, after Lily was born, Emily and her ex-husband, Jake, had considered having another child. Emily had undergone fertility treatment before both pregnancies. There had been embryos left over. She and Jake signed papers ordering the clinic to destroy them after their divorce. Emily had cried for a week, then she told me it was done.
“The clinic sent you confirmation,” I said.
“They lied.” Detective Cole’s eyes narrowed. “Bellweather kept an embryo?” “More than one.” Emily looked at the sleeping baby.
“They implanted mine into another woman.”
The room seemed to tilt. “Without your permission?” Cole asked. “Without hers too.”
The woman who carried Grace was named Tessa. Twenty-six years old.
Single.
She had gone to Bellweather for treatment after repeated miscarriages. Voss told her he was implanting an embryo created from her egg and donor sperm. At 28 weeks, Tessa overheard two nurses arguing. One accused the other of changing identification labels. Tessa began asking questions. Two days later, the clinic told her she had developed a dangerous psychiatric condition.
They moved her into a private room.
Took her phone. Restricted visitors. “They said she was unstable,” Emily explained. “They told her family she didn’t want contact.” “How did she reach you?” Cole asked. “One of the nurses helped her.”
“Which nurse?”
“Caroline.” Detective Cole glanced at the other officer. I recognized the name. Caroline had been reported missing eight days before Emily vanished. Her photograph had appeared beside Emily’s on the news.
Two women.
Two separate disappearances. Except they had never been separate. “Caroline sent the letter,” Cole said. Emily nodded. “She included test results. Embryo records. My signature from the destruction form.”
“And you believed her?”
“Not at first.” Emily opened her dirty jacket. A flash drive had been sewn inside the lining.
“I met her.” “Where?”
“A rest stop outside the county.”
“What did she tell you?” “Bellweather had been doing it for years.” The clinic targeted families with stored embryos. Sometimes the parents ordered them destroyed. Sometimes they stopped paying storage fees.
Sometimes they moved and never updated their addresses.
Voss marked those embryos as discarded. Then he sold them. Not through legal adoption. Not through approved donation. Through private arrangements with wealthy clients desperate for children.
