Chapter 1 - The Report Written Before My Children Were Born

Elena Ward kept her eyes on the guarded hallway instead of on me.

“The reason their treatment isn’t working,” she had said.

I wanted to demand an explanation, but something in the way she stood—wet coat dripping onto my office carpet, fingers locked around the old medical report—made me stop. Fear had a shape. I had seen it on men waiting to be executed. Elena was not afraid of me.

She was afraid of someone inside my house.

“Prescott,” I said.

My security chief stepped closer. “Yes?”

“Seal the floor. Nobody leaves. Nobody calls out.”

Elena flinched.

I noticed.

“Who are you afraid of?”

She looked at the report. “Dr. Yates.”

For a second, the name made no sense. Franklin Yates had delivered both my children. He had stood beside Genevieve through two miscarriages. He had attended my wife’s funeral. For the last eleven months, he had overseen every scan, biopsy, transfusion, and medication that kept Jonah and Blythe alive.

I laughed once, without humor. “Try again.”

Elena unfolded the report and pushed it toward me.

It came from a place called Meridian Reproductive Institute. I remembered the clinic. Genevieve and I had gone there after our second miscarriage. We had used in vitro fertilization, though only three people outside the medical team had known.

Across the top of the page were two identifiers.

Embryo J.M.

Embryo B.M.

Beneath them, handwritten in Genevieve’s unmistakable blue ink, were the names Jonah and Blythe.

My chest tightened.

The date was seven years old.

One year before the twins were born.

Elena pointed to a section marked GENOMIC REVIEW.

“Read the last line.”

I did.

DNA REPAIR PATHWAY ABNORMALITY—RECOMMEND EXPANDED ANALYSIS BEFORE IMPLANTATION.

“That doesn’t say leukemia,” I said.

“No. It says the embryos showed a defect that can cause marrow failure, abnormal blood-cell development, and catastrophic sensitivity to certain chemotherapy drugs.”

I looked at her.

She swallowed. “Your children may have been treated for the wrong disease.”

The room seemed to tilt.

“That’s impossible.”

“I thought so too.”

“You’re not a doctor.”

“No. I was an embryology nurse at Meridian.”

The answer hit harder than I expected.

Elena reached into her coat again, slower this time. Prescott’s hand hovered near his weapon, but I stopped him with a glance.

She produced a second sheet.

It was a medication log from Jonah’s chart.

Three entries had been circled.

“Those drugs,” she said, “are dangerous in patients with the repair defect listed on the embryo report. If the defect is still present, every round could have damaged their marrow further.”

I felt something cold move through me.

Yates had prescribed all three.

“Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know if he knew what was in the original file.”

“You just accused him.”

“I said I’m afraid of him.”

Before I could answer, Prescott’s earpiece crackled.

He listened, and the color left his face.

“What?”

“Dr. Yates was in the east medical wing ten minutes ago.”

“He’s with the twins?”

“Not anymore.”

I was moving before he finished.

We crossed the corridor fast enough that two guards had to run to keep pace. Elena followed until Prescott blocked her at the secured door.

Inside the medical suite, Jonah slept beneath a heated blanket. Blythe’s eyes were closed, her small mouth dry and cracked.

Their nurse, Mallory, stood by the monitor.

“Where’s Yates?”

“He said he needed to retrieve records from his car.”

“Did he give them anything?”

She hesitated.

My heartbeat turned violent.

“What did he give them?”

“Nothing unusual. He adjusted Blythe’s infusion and ordered another dose of cyclophosphamide for tonight.”

Elena made a sound behind me.

I turned.

She looked terrified.

“Do not give that dose,” she said.

Mallory frowned. “Who are you?”

“Stop the infusion,” I ordered.

“Mr. Mercer, I need physician authorization.”

“You have mine.”

“That isn’t how—”

“Then call another physician.”

Prescott touched his earpiece again. “Sir.”

I looked at him.

“Yates’s car just cleared the south gate.”

“You said the estate was sealed.”

“It is now. He left ninety seconds before your order reached the gate.”

Elena closed her eyes.

I stared through the glass at my children.

For eleven months, I had believed I was watching disease destroy them.

For the first time, I wondered whether I had been watching the treatment do it instead.

“Find Yates,” I said.

Prescott did not move.

“Now.”

He turned to go.

Elena caught my sleeve.

“There’s one more thing.”

Her voice was barely audible.

“What?”

“The original Meridian report had three pages.”

I looked down at the two sheets in my hand.

“What was on the third?”

“I never saw it.”

“Then how do you know it existed?”

“Because Genevieve stole it the night she disappeared from the clinic.”

The monitors continued their soft, indifferent beeping.

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Elena’s grip tightened.

“And Franklin Yates spent seven years trying to get it back.”