Chapter 4 - Lorraine wanted my daughter’s records
The fertility clinic denied requesting my file.
Someone had used its name.
Detective Cole traced the fax number.
A temporary virtual line.
Paid anonymously.
But the prenatal records requested were oddly specific.
Blood type.
Genetic screening.
Ultrasounds.
Estimated conception date.
Paternity-related markers.
Caleb read the list twice.
Then looked at me.
“Does she think Grace isn't mine?”
That was the obvious explanation.
Which was exactly why I distrusted it.
Lorraine had spent years planting suspicion.
Maybe she intended to manufacture a paternity scandal.
But why obtain the genuine medical records first?
Then Caleb remembered something.
Six months earlier, Lorraine had become strangely interested in our genetic screening.
Did the baby have Caleb’s blood type?
Were there hereditary abnormalities?
Had we done carrier testing?
At the time, it sounded like an anxious grandmother.
Now every question felt different.
Detective Cole obtained a warrant for Lorraine’s electronics.
What investigators found wasn't an affair dossier.
It was a pregnancy dossier.
Mine.
Appointment dates.
Weight changes.
Ultrasound photographs.
Medication.
Lab results.
Even notes about when Caleb and I had been trying to conceive.
Some information only family knew.
Some should have been medically private.
Someone had been feeding her information.
Then they found a folder.
ROWAN SUCCESSION.
Inside were financial documents.
Caleb laughed when Detective Cole mentioned them.
“My family doesn't have succession planning.”
He owned a successful construction firm, but we weren't dynastic wealth.
Or so I thought.
Caleb’s father, Charles Rowan, had died four years earlier.
According to Lorraine, he'd left modest investments and their Charleston home.
Detective Cole placed a trust document on my blanket.
Charles Rowan had apparently controlled something else.
A private land-holding partnership containing thousands of acres along the South Carolina coast.
Current estimated value:
$186 million.
Caleb stopped breathing.
He had never heard of it.
Neither had Lorraine inherited it.
Charles’s trust specified that controlling interest would pass after the birth of Caleb’s first biological child.
Not to Caleb.
To the child.
Grace.
I stared through the NICU glass.
Our premature daughter wasn't merely Lorraine’s unwanted granddaughter.
She was standing between Lorraine and $186 million.
But even that wasn't the worst part.
The trust contained another condition.
If Caleb's first child were proven not biologically his, control would pass elsewhere.
To Lorraine’s other son.
Caleb looked at Detective Cole.
“I don't have a brother.”
May you like
Detective Cole slowly closed the file.
“According to your father, you do.”
