Chapter 7 - The Missing Woman
I took the lab sheet from Nina and read the same line three times.
TRANSFER: EV-14-02.
RECIPIENT: REDACTED.
DATE: seven years earlier.
OUTCOME field: withheld.
“Why is the recipient blacked out?” I asked.
“Because Peter wanted copies that pointed to Helena without exposing the oldest transfer.”
“Peter made these binders?”
Nina nodded.
“He told Keller to maintain a parallel paper trail. One clean enough to survive an audit, one dirty enough to destroy someone if he ever needed leverage.”
Owen swore under his breath.
I looked at the envelope labeled HELENA.
I did not open it.
Not yet.
Nina did.
Inside were copies of Helena's emails to Keller, each one ugly enough to make her look like the architect. She complained that I had "failed the family" and asked when another carrier could be found. But the payment instructions attached to the emails came from PHR, not Helena.
Peter had built a package that told a convincing story as long as nobody followed the money.
Owen photographed every page before Nina returned them to the envelope.
“Why would Peter help me find evidence against himself?”
“Because he thinks you are still looking at the wrong crime.”
Nina sat on an overturned bucket.
Her hands were shaking now.
She had worked at Westbridge for eleven years. She handled inventory checks, transfer logs, and external storage reconciliation.
Three years ago, Dr. Keller ordered her to change the status of my remaining embryos from viable to nonviable in the patient-facing system.
She refused.
He changed it himself.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought it was a documentation dispute.”
“That answer gets worse every time someone says it.”
She flinched.
I hated that I did not care.
Then she told me she had called an internal compliance number and received a warning two days later that discussing patient data outside the clinic could cost her license.
She backed down.
Years passed.
Then Clara appeared.
Nina recognized the embryo ID.
She searched the archived chain-of-custody file and found my signature on a consent form she knew had not existed when the embryo was stored.
That was when she copied the logs.
“What is PHR?” Owen asked.
Nina looked at him. “Peter Hartmann Holdings.”
My stomach tightened.
“Not a medical code.”
“No.”
The letters on the pharmacy packets.
The clinic payments.
The consulting company.
All Peter.
I took out my phone.
No signal.
“Who else knows you have this?”
“Keller suspects.”
“Peter?”
“He knows I copied something. He does not know how much.”
“Lukas?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Helena?”
Nina shook her head.
Owen stood.
“We leave now. We get her somewhere secure, then we file for an emergency injunction on every embryo associated with Evelyn’s patient ID and every alias Nina can identify.”
Nina looked at me.
“You also need Clara protected.”
“I know.”
“Not just from Lukas.”
The way she said it stopped me.
“What do you mean?”
Nina looked toward the dark hallway.
“Peter uses people until the paperwork catches up. Then he changes the paperwork.”
Nina handed Owen a second flash drive from inside her coat. It contained screenshots of deleted clinic messages. One showed Keller asking Peter whether Clara should be listed as a carrier or a patient. Peter answered with six words: WHATEVER GIVES US MORE CONTROL.
We drove directly to Owen’s office.
By three in the morning, his conference table was covered with copies.
At six, an associate arrived with coffee and a portable scanner.
At seven, Owen called a judge’s clerk about an emergency preservation order.
Nina gave us three aliases Westbridge had used when moving frozen material between facilities. Owen's associate added each one to the filing. If the order went through, no embryo connected to my patient number could be transferred, destroyed, relabeled, or released without court approval.
For the first time since Clara called me, one part of the scheme was about to stop moving.
Then my phone showed 7:18.
I called Clara.
No answer.
I called again.
Nothing.
At 7:24, she texted one word.
HELP.
A second message began to appear—three gray dots, then nothing. I called before the screen finished dimming. It rang once and cut to silence.
Then her phone went offline.
Owen called the police.
I gave them the hospital garage threat, the pregnancy, the forged documents, and Clara’s temporary hotel information.
Two officers met us there.
The room was empty.
Her suitcase remained zipped on the luggage stand.
A prenatal-vitamin bottle lay on the bathroom counter.
Her coat was gone.
So was the small medical bag she carried to appointments.
The bed looked untouched.
One officer checked the hallway cameras.
Clara had left the room at 6:51 a.m. with a woman in a beige coat.
“She didn’t look forced,” he said.
“She was threatened with losing her baby.”
“That can make force hard to see,” Owen added.
The officer nodded and kept watching.
The woman in the beige coat turned her face toward the camera.
Helena.
My phone buzzed.
A video notification appeared from an unknown account.
LIVE STREAM INVITATION.
The username was CLARA_W.
I tapped it.
The screen showed a ceiling.
White paint.
A brass light fixture.
The image shook.
Then Clara’s face appeared sideways for half a second.
Her eyes were red.
Someone had placed her phone in a bag or pocket with the camera exposed.
A voice spoke in German.
Helena.
“You are making this worse than it needs to be.”
Clara answered in English. “I’m not signing anything.”
The camera shifted.
Helena’s hand entered frame.
A large gold ring flashed on her finger.
I had seen that ring at dinner for years.
I had never looked closely at the engraving.
P H R.
Not Helena’s initials.
Peter’s company.
A door opened.
Lukas stepped into view.
He looked angry, not frightened.
He held a folder.
“Last chance,” he said.
Clara backed away.
“No.”
Lukas slapped the folder onto a table.
“Sign the parental release.”
“No.”
May you like
His face hardened.
“Then my father will make the next decision for you.”
