Chapter 3 - The Woman on the Porch
The pregnant woman did not step inside until Diane asked her name twice.
“Serena Vale.”
Her voice shook.
“I’m sorry. I know how insane this looks.”
Mark’s hand remained on the door.
“How did you get this address?”
Serena lifted the Northbridge folder.
“From the same person who sent me this.”
Lauren came slowly down the hall.
One hand stayed beneath her belly as if she needed to physically hold herself together.
“What did they send you?”
Serena opened the folder.
Inside were three lab reports, a photograph of a cryogenic storage rack, and a transfer sheet printed with a barcode.
The barcode number was 17-B.
Lauren stopped walking.
“That’s ours.”
Serena’s eyes filled.
“No. Northbridge told me it was mine.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Diane took the transfer sheet and placed it beside the copy Lauren had carried from the kitchen.
Both pages had the same embryo identification number.
Both listed different patient names.
Both were signed by the same physician.
Dr. Calvin Nolan.
Mark’s voice went flat.
“When was your transfer?”
“January fourteenth.”
Lauren inhaled sharply.
“Hers was January fourteenth too,” Diane said.
Serena looked at Lauren’s stomach.
“I’m carrying a boy.”
Lauren’s knees weakened.
Mark caught her before she fell.
This time she did not pull away.
Diane guided both women to the living room while Emily locked the front door.
Outside, guests were finally leaving through the side gate, taking their confusion and their untouched champagne with them.
Inside, the house became painfully quiet.
Serena sat on the edge of the sofa.
“I wasn’t supposed to know the sex either. But after my twenty-week scan, the technician slipped and said ‘he.’ I didn’t care. My husband and I had been trying for six years.”
Lauren stared at her.
“Who is your husband?”
“Aaron Vale.”
Mark’s expression changed.
Diane noticed.
“You know that name.”
Mark didn’t answer immediately.
Serena did.
“His family owns Vale Biologics.”
Emily’s eyes widened.
“The company that supplies fertility labs?”
Serena nodded.
“They manufacture storage systems, tracking labels, a lot of the equipment Northbridge uses.”
Diane looked at Mark again.
“What do you know?”
Mark ran one hand through his hair.
“Northbridge’s new cryogenic wing was financed through a Vale Biologics partnership.”
Lauren stared at him.
“How do you know that?”
“Because after your test, I started searching.”
“You said you found out yesterday.”
“I found out about the paternity result yesterday. I started looking into Northbridge three weeks ago.”
Lauren stood.
“You knew about my test?”
Mark closed his eyes briefly.
“I saw the envelope in your car.”
“You opened my mail?”
“You were crying in the garage at two in the morning and then telling me everything was fine. I thought you were sick.”
“So you broke into my medical mail.”
“I panicked.”
“You investigated behind my back for three weeks.”
“I was trying to find out whether the lab was wrong before I accused you of something unforgivable.”
Lauren’s face twisted.
“You did accuse me. You just did it silently.”
Diane stood between them again.
“Not now.”
Lauren laughed bitterly.
“Apparently ‘not now’ is how everybody has been running my pregnancy.”
Serena rose too.
“I didn’t come here to make this worse.”
Lauren turned toward her.
“Then why did you come?”
“Because someone sent me a DNA report this morning. My husband is not genetically related to the baby I’m carrying.”
The words landed softly.
They still felt like an explosion.
Mark stared at Serena.
“What about you?”
“I am not related either.”
Lauren’s face went white.
Serena’s lips trembled.
“So when I got the message saying another patient named Lauren Mercer might be carrying my embryo, I came.”
Diane sat down.
“Your embryo was female?”
“Yes.”
“Genetically yours and Aaron’s?”
“Yes.”
“And Lauren’s embryo was male.”
Serena nodded.
Nobody needed to say the next part.
Lauren was carrying Serena and Aaron’s daughter.
Serena was carrying Lauren and Mark’s son.
If the documents were real.
If the tests were real.
If anything Northbridge had told either couple could be trusted.
The pendant light in the kitchen ticked faintly down the hall.
Tick.
Tick-tick.
Diane forced herself to think beyond the panic.
“Who sent you the message?”
“Unknown number.”
“Same wording as Lauren’s?”
Serena opened her phone.
The first text read:
YOU ARE CARRYING EMBRYO 17-B.
The second:
THE WOMAN AT 214 WILLOW RIDGE HAS YOUR EMBRYO 42-F.
Emily whispered, “That’s this address.”
Mark took Serena’s phone.
“Did the sender attach metadata?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Forward it to me.”
Lauren crossed her arms.
“Why? So you can investigate alone again?”
Mark stopped.
The shame in his face was immediate.
He handed the phone back.
“You’re right.”
It was the first thing he had said all afternoon that softened Lauren even slightly.
Diane looked at Serena.
“Does Aaron know you’re here?”
Serena’s silence answered before her words did.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because when I showed him the report, he told me to destroy it.”
Mark’s head lifted.
“What?”
“He said DNA screening during pregnancy was unreliable. He told me not to call Northbridge, not to call a lawyer, and not to repeat the test.”
Diane felt anger sharpen her voice.
“That’s not normal.”
“I know.”
“Did you ask why?”
Serena nodded.
“He said there were things about the clinic’s partnership that I didn’t understand.”
Mark stared toward the window.
“Vale Biologics.”
Serena hugged the folder to her chest.
“Aaron has been on their board for eight years.”
Lauren sat back down.
“You think your husband knew?”
“I think my husband is scared of something.”
A vehicle pulled up outside.
All four adults turned toward the front windows.
A black sedan stopped at the curb.
Emily moved first, pulling the curtain aside only an inch.
A man in a gray suit got out.
He carried a slim black case.
Mark’s face tightened.
“That’s the mobile phlebotomist.”
Lauren looked at the warning on her phone.
DO NOT LET THEM DRAW YOUR BLOOD.
Diane walked to the door but did not open it.
“Mark, call the lab. Confirm his name.”
Mark dialed.
The man outside climbed the steps and rang the bell.
Mark put the phone on speaker.
A receptionist answered.
“Arlington Molecular Diagnostics, how may I help you?”
Mark gave his name and asked about the mobile appointment.
There was a pause.
Then the receptionist said, “Mr. Mercer, your technician isn’t scheduled to arrive until six thirty.”
Everyone looked at the door.
It was four twelve.
The bell rang again.
The man in the gray suit lifted his face toward the camera above the porch.
Then he held up an identification badge.
May you like
NORTHBRIDGE FERTILITY CENTER.
Lauren whispered, “They found us.”
