Chapter 7 - THE CHILDREN BEFORE US
“No.”
The word came from Graham.
Not loudly.
Just once.
His mother looked at him with tears in her eyes.
“I wish I could tell you that photograph isn't real.”
“Whose children?”
“Your father's.”
Graham stared at her.
“Mine?”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“Your father's children.”
I looked at the photograph.
Two newborns.
A boy.
A girl.
The date was twenty-four years earlier.
Before Graham met me.
Before I knew him.
Before Daniel.
Rebecca sat down.
“I was told they died.”
“Who told you?”
“Your father.”
Graham's voice became bitter.
“You said he died.”
“I lied about many things.”
She looked at me.
“I am sorry.”
I couldn't stop staring at the photograph.
“Why show us this now?”
“Because the twins you're carrying are connected to those babies.”
The room went silent.
Victor stepped forward.
“Rebecca, tell them everything.”
She looked at him.
“You knew?”
“I helped your husband escape.”
Graham looked between them.
“You're telling me my father was alive?”
“For several years.”
“Where?”
“Milwaukee.”
The same place.
The photographs.
The clinic.
Unit 417.
Everything suddenly connected.
Rebecca continued.
“Your father discovered Project Orchard was being used to create children whose genetic profiles could be controlled.”
I whispered, “Controlled for what?”
“Disease resistance. Fertility. Longevity.”
Graham's face hardened.
“That's why those babies were born.”
Rebecca nodded.
“But your father changed his mind.”
“He shut it down?”
“He tried.”
“Who stopped him?”
Rebecca looked at Victor.
“People with money.”
Victor added, “People who believed the research belonged to them.”
I felt a chill.
“What happened to the babies?”
Rebecca looked at the photograph.
“One died.”
“And the other?”
She hesitated.
“Survived.”
“Where?”
“We don't know.”
That was the first time Graham looked genuinely broken.
“My father let a child disappear?”
“No.”
Rebecca's voice sharpened.
“He tried to protect her.”
“Her?”
“The little girl.”
She pointed to the photograph.
“She was moved through three hospitals under different names.”
“Why?”
“Because someone was trying to find her.”
I looked down at my own stomach.
“Why would they care about her?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Because she carried the genetic profile your father's investors wanted.”
A horrible silence followed.
Then Graham asked the question I was afraid to ask.
“And Claire?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Your mother was one of the doctors who helped hide the records.”
My heart stopped.
“My mother wasn't a doctor.”
“No.”
Rebecca's eyes softened.
“She was a medical accountant.”
Of course.
My mother had always been obsessive about numbers.
Bills.
Invoices.
Insurance.
Every receipt filed in labeled envelopes.
She had told me once that numbers remembered what people forgot.
Now I understood why.
“She found the financial trail,” Rebecca said.
“And she exposed it?”
“She tried.”
“Then why did she never tell me?”
“Because someone threatened you.”
I thought of the coffee cake.
Daniel's mother.
The breakup.
Could that have been part of it?
I looked at Daniel.
“Did your mother know?”
He nodded slowly.
“She knew something was wrong.”
“Why did she break us up?”
His eyes filled.
“She thought Daniel would be safer without you.”
Daniel looked down.
“My mother believed your family was dangerous.”
“So she made me believe I was broken.”
“She didn't know the whole truth.”
“But she knew enough.”
“Yes.”
The answer hurt.
But it was honest.
Then Rebecca reached into her handbag.
She removed a small velvet pouch.
Inside was a necklace.
A simple gold chain with a tiny oval pendant.
My mother had owned one exactly like it.
I touched it.
“This is hers.”
Rebecca nodded.
“Your mother gave it to me twenty-five years ago.”
“Why?”
“Because she said if she ever disappeared, I should give it to her daughter.”
I opened the pendant.
Inside was a tiny photograph.
A baby.
A hospital bracelet.
And a number.
31.
My own subject number.
But beneath it was another number.
32.
I looked at Graham.
“What does thirty-two mean?”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
“Your mother wasn't the only woman in that program.”
“Who was thirty-two?”
Rebecca whispered:
“The woman who carried the other child.”
I stared at her.
“What other child?”
She looked toward Daniel.
He slowly removed another photograph from his coat.
A woman holding a newborn girl.
The woman's face was hidden.
But the bracelet on the baby's wrist was visible.
SUBJECT 32.
Then Daniel turned the photograph over.
There was one handwritten sentence.
SHE GREW UP UNDER ANOTHER NAME.
Graham looked at me.
“Claire…”
Before he could finish, my phone rang.
This time it wasn't my mother.
It was the hospital.
The nurse's voice was shaking.
“Mrs. Whitmore, you need to come back immediately.”
“Why?”
“Because someone accessed your prenatal file.”
“Who?”
“We don't know.”
I stood.
“What did they change?”
The nurse hesitated.
Then she said:
“They added another patient to your pregnancy.”
I felt my blood run cold.
“Who?”
May you like
The nurse whispered the name.
Daniel Carter.
