Chapter 4 - Blood at the Door
Mark killed the lights in the foyer.
Diane’s first instinct was to tell him not to be ridiculous.
Then the man outside tried the doorknob.
Nobody spoke.
The lock clicked softly beneath his hand.
Once.
Twice.
Then he knocked again.
“Mrs. Mercer?” he called through the door.
His voice was calm and professional.
“My name is Daniel Reed. Dr. Nolan asked me to collect a confirmatory sample.”
Lauren stared at her mother.
“I never authorized that.”
Diane stepped closer to the door without touching it.
“We’re not doing any testing today.”
A pause.
“Mrs. Mercer, this is time sensitive.”
“So is trespassing.”
“I’m not trespassing.”
“You tried my door.”
Another pause.
Then the man said, “I apologize. I thought someone had unlocked it for me.”
Diane almost laughed.
Instead she took out her phone and called the police.
The man heard her through the door.
By the time she gave the dispatcher the address, he was walking back toward the sedan.
Mark moved to the side window and recorded him leaving.
Emily read the license plate aloud.
Serena sat rigid on the sofa.
“I know him.”
Everyone turned.
“From where?” Lauren asked.
“He works for Vale Biologics.”
Mark lowered the phone.
“You’re sure?”
“He came to our house last Christmas. Aaron introduced him as compliance.”
The sedan pulled away.
Diane felt the day cross another invisible line.
The confusion had become surveillance.
Maybe intimidation.
Maybe evidence destruction.
She did not yet know which possibility frightened her more.
The police arrived eleven minutes later.
By then the party had emptied out completely.
Only broken glass remained near the patio doors, pink frosting dried on abandoned plates, and a banner reading BABY MERCER fluttering in the warm afternoon air.
The officer took statements and reviewed Mark’s video.
He could not do much with a man who had knocked on a door and left.
But he logged the license plate and advised them to save every message, photograph, and document.
Diane watched him drive away and felt no safer.
At six thirty, the legitimate phlebotomist arrived.
This one came in a white hatchback, carried identification from Arlington Molecular Diagnostics, and waited on the porch while Mark verified her employee number twice.
Lauren almost refused anyway.
The warning text had burrowed into her mind.
“Do not let them draw your blood.”
Diane understood why she hesitated.
But they needed facts from someone outside Northbridge.
The technician drew Lauren’s blood, Mark’s blood, and—after a long conversation with the laboratory director—Serena’s blood too.
Aaron was not there to provide a sample.
Serena did not call him.
They paid for expedited genetic relationship testing and chain-of-custody documentation.
“Results tomorrow evening,” the technician said.
Before she left, she sealed every tube in front of them.
Diane photographed the seals.
Mark photographed the courier bag.
Lauren photographed the technician’s identification.
By then distrust had become a group activity.
That night nobody wanted to go home.
Serena slept in Diane’s guest room.
Mark took the downstairs sofa because Lauren would not share a room with him.
Emily finally left at nine after giving Diane copies of the bakery call log and the security footage showing Mark’s morning visit.
Before she went, she stopped in the doorway.
“There’s something else.”
Diane had reached the point where those words made her stomach clench automatically.
“What?”
Emily looked at Lauren.
“My sister worked at Northbridge.”
Mark sat up.
“Worked?”
“She’s on medical leave.”
“What department?”
“Embryology.”
Lauren’s face sharpened.
“What’s her name?”
“Hannah Park.”
Serena whispered the name first.
“Oh my God.”
Diane looked at her.
“You know her?”
“No, but I’ve seen it.”
Serena opened her folder and pulled out the cryogenic rack photograph.
At the bottom, handwritten in black ink, were the initials H.P.
Emily’s face drained.
“Where did you get that?”
“Anonymous message.”
Emily sat down.
“My sister called me two months ago and said she’d made a mistake at work. She wouldn’t tell me what. A week later she said it wasn’t a mistake. She said someone had changed the logs after she signed them.”
Mark leaned forward.
“Where is she now?”
Emily looked at her hands.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“She disappeared eleven days ago.”
Lauren inhaled sharply.
“Did you call the police?”
“Yes. They said she’s an adult and there was no evidence of foul play. Her apartment was clean. Her car was in the garage. Her phone was gone.”
Diane sat beside Emily.
“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?”
“Because I thought she’d run away from a job she hated. Then Mark walked into my bakery with Northbridge records, and an hour later you showed me the same embryo number Serena has.”
Mark rubbed both hands over his face.
“Did Hannah ever mention embryo 17-B?”
“No.”
“42-F?”
Emily shook her head.
“She did mention a room.”
Diane waited.
Emily’s eyes were fixed on the floor.
“Room Seventeen.”
Lauren frowned.
“What is that?”
“I don’t know. She said, ‘If anything happens, don’t believe the incident report about Room Seventeen.’ That was the last normal conversation we had.”
The pendant light ticked from the kitchen.
Tick.
Tick-tick.
Lauren pressed her palms over her ears.
“I hate that sound.”
Diane stood on a chair and twisted the glass shade until the metal stopped vibrating.
For the first time all day, the kitchen went completely silent.
At 11:43 p.m., Diane’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
Everyone woke at once.
Diane answered on speaker.
At first there was only breathing.
Then a woman whispered, “Is Emily there?”
Emily went white.
“Hannah?”
The caller began to cry.
Emily grabbed the phone.
“Hannah, where are you?”
“Don’t ask me that.”
“We’ve been looking for you.”
“I know.”
“What happened at Northbridge?”
Silence.
Then Hannah said, “They switched the embryos on purpose.”
Lauren’s hand clamped around Mark’s wrist.
Emily whispered, “Who?”
But Hannah did not answer that question.
Instead she said, “Tell Lauren and Serena not to let their husbands sign anything.”
Mark and Serena both froze.
Emily’s voice broke.
“Why?”
Hannah took one ragged breath.
May you like
“Because one of the husbands already did.”
The call ended.
