“That does not give him the right to steal my child.”
She flinched.
“Don’t call him that.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“Knox is my child.”
“You just told everyone he was Nick’s child to steal forty percent of my estate.”
“I was desperate.”
“For what?”
She looked at the floor.
“Money.”
Of course.
But the answer was not simple.
It never was.
Nick had approached Megan while Todd was away on a six-week construction project in Virginia.
He told her our embryos were eventually going to be destroyed.
He claimed I could not bear another transfer and had privately agreed that Megan could serve as a gestational carrier.
Megan initially refused.
Then Nick offered her seventy-five thousand dollars.
She had nearly sixty thousand dollars in hidden credit-card debt.
Todd knew nothing.
So she agreed.
“How did he get the embryo released?”
I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s a lie.”
“I swear.”
“You don’t walk into a fertility clinic and leave with an embryo in your purse.”
“I never went to your clinic.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
“The transfer happened at another clinic.”
Daria leaned forward.
“Which clinic?”
Megan named a small reproductive medicine practice outside Greensboro.
I had never heard of it.
“Nick handled everything,” she continued.
“I met a doctor twice.
There were injections.
Blood tests.
Then the transfer.”
“And you never thought that was insane?”
Her eyes flashed.
“You think I was thinking clearly?
I owed money.
Todd and I were fighting.
Nick told me I’d be helping you.”
“Helping me?”
“He said you wanted a child but couldn’t survive another pregnancy attempt.”
“I never had a pregnancy attempt.
The embryo transfer failed.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, Megan.
I don’t.”
She began crying.
“When the test was positive, I panicked.”
“Did Todd believe the pregnancy was natural?”
“Yes.”
“You lied to him every day for two years.”
She looked away.
“And after Knox was born?”
“Nick started changing.”
“How?”
“He wanted him.”
My heart tightened.
“What?”
“He came over.
Held him.
Bought things.
Asked for pictures.
He kept saying maybe this was fate.”
Todd had returned from outside.
He stood in the doorway.
“You let him come see my son behind my back?”
Megan started to answer.
Todd held up a hand.
“No.
I can’t hear anymore.”
He walked away again.
Megan wiped her eyes.
“Then Nick’s gambling got worse.
He needed money.
He started asking me to repay what he gave me.”
“Seventy-five thousand?”
“At first.”
“At first?”
“He said the medical arrangements had cost more.
Then he said I owed him two hundred thousand.”
Daria’s eyes narrowed.
“That makes no sense.”
“I know.”
“So you blackmailed him.”
Megan looked at me.
“I threatened to tell Angela everything.”
My hands curled.
“The voicemail.”
“Yes.”
“You threatened to expose him unless he changed his will?”
“I wanted Knox protected.”
“No.
You wanted leverage.”
“He was going to ruin all of us!”
“And your solution was to stand at a birthday party and claim you were sleeping with my husband?”
Her face twisted.
“I needed a story people would understand.”
I almost laughed.
“You thought adultery was easier?”
“Easier than explaining this.”
She gestured toward Knox.
And for one horrible second, I understood.
Not forgave.
Understood.
An affair was ugly.
An embryo stolen from a married couple and secretly implanted into the wife’s sister sounded impossible.
But impossible things still happen.
Especially when people discover that systems depend on signatures, passwords, trust, and employees who assume documents are real.
Two days later, Daria and I sat inside a conference room at my fertility clinic.
The clinic director looked physically ill.
Four embryos had been stored after our final IVF cycle.
According to their database, there should still have been four.
But when the tanks were physically audited after Daria’s preservation demand, there were only three.
One was missing.
The electronic record showed a transfer authorization eighteen months earlier.
My signature appeared on it.
It was not mine.
Nick’s signature was genuine.
The authorization instructed the clinic to release one embryo to a reproductive transport service.
The transport company existed.
But the account used for the transaction had been created with forged documents.
The receiving clinic in Greensboro had closed six months earlier.
Its medical director had disappeared.
Daria slid a photograph across the table.
“Do you recognize him?”
I stared at a middle-aged man with silver hair.
“No.”
“His name is Dr.
Peter Vale.”
The clinic director looked down.
Daria continued.
“He has been under investigation in two states for fertility fraud.”
My stomach turned.
“And Gerald Croft?”
“Connected.”
The network began to appear.
Croft had helped create shell companies.
Vale handled medical procedures.
Nick supplied money.
