Chapter 2 - THE AMBULANCE
The paramedics arrived before the police.
By then my baby shower looked like the aftermath of a storm.
Paper plates covered the carpet. A tray of cupcakes had been knocked sideways. Blue frosting streaked the floor where someone had stepped in it during the confusion. Half the guests had moved outside. The other half stood along the walls whispering as if lowering their voices could make what they had witnessed less real.
Lauren had stopped crying.
That frightened me more than the screaming.
She sat on the far end of the couch with her arms folded, watching everyone.
Calculating.
I knew that look.
She had worn it throughout childhood whenever she broke something and needed to decide which lie would protect her.
The difference was that we were no longer children arguing over a broken lamp.
I was thirty-four years old.
Thirty-two weeks pregnant.
And my sister had apparently found a way to put her husband’s DNA inside my body without either of us knowing.
“Mrs. Bennett, I need you to focus on me.”
The paramedic kneeling beside me was named Tara.
“I am.”
“Any bleeding?”
“No.”
“Contractions?”
“I don’t know.”
She placed two fingers against my wrist while another paramedic prepared a portable fetal monitor.
My stomach tightened.
I froze.
“There,” I whispered. “That.”
Tara looked at me. “A contraction?”
“Maybe.”
My mother appeared beside us.
“We’re going to the hospital.”
“I’m fine.”
“You were shoved out of a chair.”
“Mom—”
“You are going.”
For once, I didn’t argue.
Caleb stood near the front door speaking with two police officers.
Lauren kept watching him.
One officer was taking photographs of the torn report.
The other approached the guests one at a time.
I caught fragments.
“She grabbed the paper.”
“No, Claire didn’t stand up.”
“Lauren pushed her shoulder.”
“She tore it deliberately.”
Every statement made Lauren’s face harder.
Then she noticed me looking at her.
“You did this,” she said.
The entire room fell quiet.
I stared at her. “I did what?”
“You wanted attention.”
Caleb turned.
“Stop talking.”
She laughed.
It sounded brittle.
“You think she’s innocent? She somehow ends up pregnant with your child and suddenly I’m the criminal?”
“You know she didn’t sleep with me.”
“How would I know?”
“Because I know.”
Lauren stood. “Men lie.”
“So do you.”
That landed.
Her expression went blank.
Caleb walked toward her.
Two police officers subtly shifted position.
“You told me the sample I provided at Lakeview was destroyed after our fertility consultation,” he said. “You showed me paperwork.”
“It was destroyed.”
“Then explain this.”
He pointed to the torn report.
She looked at me.
That was when I saw it.
Not panic.
Hatred.
Pure, concentrated hatred.
“You always get everything,” she whispered.
My mother stood so fast her chair hit the wall.
“Lauren.”
“What? We’re pretending it isn’t true?”
I couldn’t understand what I was hearing.
“You think I wanted Mark to die?”
Her eyes flickered.
For the first time, she looked uncertain.
I felt cold.
“Lauren?”
Nobody spoke.
“You think I wanted to become a widow at thirty-three?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You said I get everything.”
My throat tightened. “What exactly did I get?”
She looked away.
The paramedic touched my shoulder.
“We need to go.”
I let them help me onto the stretcher.
As they rolled me toward the door, I saw one officer pick up the largest remaining piece of the DNA report and place it inside an evidence sleeve.
Caleb walked alongside me.
“I’m coming to the hospital.”
Lauren snapped, “You’re my husband.”
He stopped.
Everyone looked at him.
Caleb took off his wedding ring.
He stared at it for a long moment.
Then he placed it on the entry table beside a bowl of pastel mints.
“Not tonight.”
Lauren’s face crumpled.
But Caleb had already turned away.
The ambulance ride took seventeen minutes.
I spent every second staring at the ceiling and trying not to imagine the worst.
Mark should have been there.
That thought came suddenly and viciously.
Mark should have been holding my hand.
He should have been making terrible jokes because he always joked when he was afraid.
He should have been arguing with the paramedic about whether the fetal monitor looked like equipment from a science-fiction movie.
Instead, my brother-in-law sat beside me with bloodless lips because a laboratory report said he was my baby’s biological father.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I turned my head.
“For what?”
“For whatever she did.”
“You don’t even know what she did.”
“I know enough.”
His eyes remained on the floor.
“Two years ago, Lauren and I went to Lakeview because she wanted children. We both did testing. I gave a sample. A month later she told me she’d changed her mind.”
“Why?”
“She said pregnancy scared her. She said she wanted to wait.”
“And the sample?”
“She said everything had been destroyed.”
“Did you sign anything?”
“Yes.”
My heart thudded.
“What?”
“Consent forms for testing and temporary storage. Nothing else.”
“Could she have used your signature?”
He looked at me.
“Yes.”
At the hospital, they took me straight to obstetric triage.
The baby’s heartbeat was strong.
My blood pressure was high.
There was bruising along my hip but no sign of placental abruption.
Dr. Patel ordered several hours of monitoring.
“Your son looks good,” she said. “But after abdominal stress and a fall this late in pregnancy, we’re not taking chances.”
My eyes burned.
“Thank you.”
She hesitated.
“There are police officers outside.”
“I know.”
“One of them says they need to ask about possible reproductive tampering.”
The phrase sounded unreal.
Reproductive tampering.
As if someone had changed a label.
Not changed my child’s biological identity.
I nodded.
“Let them in.”
Detective Maria Alvarez entered twenty minutes later.
She was perhaps forty-five, with dark hair tied at the base of her neck and a notebook in one hand.
She sat beside my bed.
“Mrs. Bennett, I know today has been difficult.”
“That’s an understatement.”
A flicker of sympathy crossed her face.
“I’m going to ask some very specific questions.”
For the next forty minutes, I told her everything.
Mark’s cancer.
His frozen sample.
His death.
My decision to continue treatment.
The anonymous email.
The prenatal DNA test.
Lauren’s behavior.
When I finished, Alvarez closed her notebook.
“Who knew the test results were arriving today?”
“My doctor.”
“The laboratory?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone in your family?”
“My mom. Lauren.”
“How did Lauren know?”
“I told my mother.”
“Did you tell Lauren directly?”
“No.”
Alvarez made a note.
“Do you know anyone who works at Lakeview Fertility?”
“No.”
Caleb, who had been silent near the window, suddenly spoke.
“My wife does.”
I turned.
“What?”
He looked sick.
“Not directly.”
Alvarez faced him.
“Explain.”
“Lauren’s college roommate, Nicole Mercer, works there.”
My skin prickled.
“What does she do?”
Caleb swallowed.
“Embryology lab coordinator.”
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Detective Alvarez stood.
“I need her full name.”
Caleb gave it.
The detective stepped outside to make a call.
I looked at him.
“You knew?”
“No. I knew Nicole worked there. I didn’t know she had anything to do with your treatment.”
“Lauren recommended Lakeview to me.”
His eyes closed.
That was another piece.
Another coincidence that was no longer a coincidence.
My phone rang on the bedside table.
Mom.
I answered.
“Hey.”
She was crying.
“Claire, police are still here.”
“Okay.”
“They searched Lauren’s purse.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“And?”
“They found a key card.”
I sat up.
“A key card to what?”
May you like
My mother’s voice broke.
“Lakeview Fertility.”
