Chapter 6 - WHAT LAUREN REALLY WANTED
Nicole’s statement took nearly six hours.
I was not allowed in the interview room, but Detective Alvarez met us afterward in a secured conference room at the hospital where Nicole was being treated.
“She confirmed Graham helped plan the fraud,” Alvarez said.
Dad leaned forward. “Why?”
“Money.”
“How much?”
“Potentially millions.”
Alvarez opened a folder.
“Graham had been diverting company funds through shell vendors for at least four years. He learned Mr. Bennett intended to restructure the company and require an independent audit after the birth of his first grandchild.”
Dad’s face hardened.
“So he needed to prevent the trust.”
“Or delay it long enough to move money and leave.”
Caleb asked, “Where did Lauren fit?”
“She approached him first.”
That surprised us.
“About what?” I asked.
“Your inheritance.”
I stared at the table.
Alvarez continued.
“According to Nicole, Lauren believed your father favored you.”
“He didn’t.”
“That’s not what matters. She believed it.”
The detective opened another document.
“She also believed Mark’s death had made you the center of the family.”
My chest tightened.
There it was again.
Jealousy.
Not of my happiness.
Of my grief.
Lauren had looked at the worst year of my life and seen attention she believed belonged to her.
“Nicole says Lauren originally wanted to sabotage your fertility cycle so it would fail.”
My hand moved over my stomach.
“How?”
“She asked Nicole to mark Mark’s specimen as nonviable.”
I felt sick.
“Then why use Caleb’s?”
“That suggestion came later.”
“From Graham?”
“Yes.”
Caleb looked disgusted.
“Why me?”
“Because it created a believable personal scandal.”
He shook his head. “Except it wasn’t believable.”
“To people who knew you well, perhaps not. To a board of directors, lawyers, social media, and a courtroom? DNA showing you as the father would create questions.”
The plan became brutally clear.
Destroy my reputation.
Trigger a family war.
Challenge my control of the trust.
Delay the audit.
Move the money.
Disappear.
“Lauren knew Graham was stealing?”
Alvarez paused.
“Nicole believes she discovered it halfway through planning.”
Dad asked, “And she continued?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Graham offered her money and company stock.”
My father looked twenty years older.
“How much?”
“Five million dollars after the trust dispute was resolved.”
Silence filled the room.
My sister had traded my body for five million dollars.
My marriage.
My dead husband’s last chance at a biological child.
Her own husband’s genetic material.
All of it had become a transaction.
“Where is Lauren now?” I asked.
“We don’t know.”
“Is she with Graham?”
“Nicole says they separated after Graham attacked her.”
“Why did he attack Nicole?”
“She wanted out.”
Alvarez explained that Nicole had begun panicking after my DNA test.
Lauren ordered her to alter laboratory records.
Nicole refused.
Graham then demanded access to the clinic servers so he could destroy digital logs.
When Nicole still refused, she fled.
He found her at the rest stop.
“He tried to force her into his car,” Alvarez said. “She fought him. A truck pulled into the parking lot, and he left.”
“Why didn’t she call police?”
“She believed she would be arrested immediately.”
“She was right.”
“Yes.”
Nicole had committed serious crimes.
But her cooperation now mattered.
She gave investigators passwords, account names, dates, payment records, and locations.
Most importantly, she revealed that Mark’s original frozen sample still existed.
The clinic confirmed it that afternoon.
I cried when they told me.
Not because I planned to use it.
I couldn’t think that far ahead.
I cried because Lauren had not managed to erase every piece of the future Mark and I had once imagined.
Caleb asked to speak with me privately before leaving.
We sat in the hospital courtyard.
He looked exhausted.
“I’m hiring my own attorney.”
“That’s probably smart.”
“I need to decide what to do legally about Noah.”
My body tensed.
He noticed immediately.
“I’m not taking your baby.”
I stared at him.
“He’s your biological child.”
“He’s your child.”
“Both can be true.”
“Yes.”
I appreciated that he did not insult me with easy promises.
“This is a mess,” I whispered.
“I know.”
“What do you want?”
He looked through the glass doors toward the hospital lobby.
“I want him protected.”
“From what?”
“From becoming evidence for the rest of his life.”
That sentence hit me.
“I don’t want people introducing him as the baby from the fertility scandal.”
“Neither do I.”
“I don’t want him growing up believing his existence was a crime.”
“He wasn’t the crime.”
Caleb nodded.
“The adults were.”
For the first time since the shower, something inside me softened.
Noah had been conceived because people committed terrible acts.
But Noah himself was not terrible.
He was innocent.
He was wanted.
Maybe not by the people who had created the circumstances of his conception.
But by me.
Completely.
“I loved him before I knew any of this,” I said.
“I know.”
“I still do.”
“I know.”
“And Mark would have loved him.”
Caleb looked down.
“I think so too.”
I cried then.
Quietly.
Caleb sat beside me without touching me.
Eventually I wiped my face.
“What will you tell Lauren?”
“If she contacts me?”
“Yes.”
“That she needs to surrender.”
“You think she will?”
“No.”
Neither did I.
That evening, Lauren finally called our mother.
Mom recorded the conversation at police direction.
“I didn’t mean for Claire to fall,” Lauren said.
My mother replied, “You shoved her.”
“She wouldn’t give me the paper.”
“Because it belonged to her.”
“She was going to ruin everything.”
“No, Lauren. You already had.”
There was a long silence.
Then Lauren said something that erased the last piece of hope I had been holding for her.
“She doesn’t deserve that baby.”
My mother’s voice changed.
“What did you say?”
“Claire gets to be the tragic widow. Claire gets Dad’s sympathy. Claire gets a baby. Claire gets everyone protecting her.”
“You think her husband dying was a gift?”
“I think everyone forgot I existed.”
Mom began crying.
“We never forgot you.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Where are you?”
“I need money.”
“No.”
“Mom—”
“Turn yourself in.”
Lauren laughed.
“You’re choosing her.”
“I am choosing what is right.”
Another silence.
Then Lauren said, “Graham is going to hurt Claire.”
Mom froze.
“What?”
“He’s desperate.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Lauren, listen to me. If you know something that can protect your sister—”
“She’s not my sister anymore.”
The call ended.
Police traced it to a motel outside Indianapolis.
By the time officers arrived, Lauren was gone.
But surveillance footage showed her getting into a dark SUV.
The driver was Graham Vale.
The same man she had just claimed was going to hurt me.
May you like
She was still with him.
And they were coming back toward Chicago.
