Chapter 6 - THE SECRET IN THE WATCH
I couldn't speak.
Graham looked as stunned as I felt.
“My father was killed because of unborn children?”
Victor shook his head.
“Not exactly.”
“Then explain.”
Victor glanced toward Daniel.
“You tell her.”
Daniel swallowed.
“Your father discovered that certain women were being selected for experimental fertility procedures.”
My stomach turned.
“Selected by whom?”
“Private investors.”
“Why?”
Daniel hesitated.
“To study inherited fertility traits.”
Graham's expression darkened.
“That's not a medical program.”
“No.”
Daniel looked at me.
“It became something much worse.”
Victor placed a file on the table.
“We never had the complete program. Only pieces.”
Graham opened it.
Inside were names.
Dates.
Hospital codes.
And one phrase repeated across multiple pages.
PROJECT ORCHARD.
My name appeared on page seventeen.
Beside it:
SUBJECT 31.
I felt sick.
“I was a subject?”
“Not knowingly,” Daniel said.
“Then why was I treated?”
“You weren't supposed to remember.”
Graham slammed the file shut.
“Enough.”
Daniel stared at him.
“Your father stopped the program when he realized what they were doing.”
Graham's jaw tightened.
“My father ran it.”
“At first.”
That distinction mattered.
Victor continued.
“He thought he was funding fertility research.”
“And then?”
“He learned the investors wanted control of the genetic material.”
Graham looked at me.
“That's why he disappeared.”
I remembered the photograph.
The silver watch.
My mother's face beside him.
Then I remembered my own wedding.
Graham had never asked me for children.
He had never pressured me.
He had never even looked disappointed when I told him motherhood was impossible.
Maybe he already knew.
Or maybe he suspected.
“Did you know about me before we met?” I asked.
He didn't answer immediately.
That hurt.
“Graham.”
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
“How long?”
“Three months before I asked you to dinner.”
I stepped backward.
“You knew?”
“I knew your name was connected to my father's records.”
“And you still married me.”
“I didn't marry you because of the records.”
“Then why?”
“Because I loved you.”
The words landed harder than I expected.
I looked away.
Victor interrupted.
“You're both missing the most important part.”
He removed an old silver watch from his pocket.
Graham stared at it.
“That was my father's.”
“No.”
Victor turned it over.
The back had a tiny engraving.
C.W. — 417
Graham reached for it.
Inside the watch was a microfilm strip.
Daniel whispered, “We found it two days ago.”
Graham looked at him.
“Why didn't you tell us?”
“Because I didn't know who I could trust.”
Victor answered for him.
“Neither did I.”
Graham opened the watch.
The microfilm contained a series of numbers.
Hospital dates.
Patient codes.
And one final line:
ORCHARD TERMINATION — CLAIRE BENNETT — FAILED.
I felt numb.
“Failed?”
Victor nodded.
“The procedure intended to prevent future pregnancy didn't work.”
“Then why did I become pregnant now?”
No one answered.
Victor looked at Graham.
“Because your husband wasn't the only person who received treatment.”
Graham's face changed.
“What?”
Victor placed another page on the table.
SUBJECT 48 — GRAHAM WHITMORE.
I stared at him.
“You were part of it too.”
Graham shook his head.
“No.”
“You said you had infertility.”
“I was tested when I was nineteen.”
“What did they do?”
“I don't know.”
Victor said quietly, “They told you you were infertile because they didn't want you to know the truth.”
Graham's face drained.
“Why?”
“Because your father's greatest mistake wasn't creating Project Orchard.”
Victor looked at me.
“It was creating a way for two people from the program to have children.”
I stared at the two lines.
Claire.
Graham.
The twins.
A horrible possibility entered my mind.
“Are you saying…”
Victor nodded.
“Your pregnancies may have been predicted years before you ever met.”
Graham's voice broke.
“No.”
Then Daniel spoke.
“There's more.”
He reached into his coat.
He removed a child's drawing.
Crayon.
Two stick figures.
A woman.
A man.
And two tiny circles beneath them.
At the bottom, written in a child's handwriting:
MOMMY + DADDY + BABIES
I stared at it.
“I drew that?”
Daniel nodded.
“When you were six.”
“That makes no sense.”
“You were obsessed with having twins.”
I looked at Graham.
His eyes were fixed on the drawing.
Then I noticed something behind the paper.
A date.
And underneath it:
THE FIRST PAIR SURVIVED.
My stomach turned.
“What first pair?”
Victor didn't answer.
Graham picked up the drawing.
His hands were shaking.
Then the door to the storage unit opened.
A woman stood there.
Elegant.
Older.
Holding a photograph of two babies.
She looked at me.
Then at Graham.
“My name is Rebecca Whitmore,” she said.
Graham went white.
“My mother.”
She looked at her son.
“I've spent twenty years trying to keep this from you.”
Then she looked at my stomach.
“But now I know I failed.”
She placed the photograph on the table.
Two newborn babies.
A hospital bracelet beside them.
The name on the bracelet was not mine.
It was Whitmore.
May you like
Rebecca whispered:
“Those were your husband's children.”
