Chapter 9 - Ethan Carter
Rachel replayed the sentence.
Jason didn't sign Ethan’s birth certificate?
The certified copy showed his name.
Not necessarily his signature.
In their state, acknowledgment records could be separate.
Rachel had never thought about it.
Jason and Rachel were married when Ethan was born.
Paternity was presumed.
So what was David implying?
Not that Jason wasn't Ethan’s father.
Rachel refused to leap there.
Then David explained.
Jason had discovered something shortly before Ethan turned two.
A medical billing record from fertility treatment Rachel underwent before conceiving.
Rachel remembered.
After eighteen months of trying, she and Jason visited a fertility clinic.
Testing.
Medication.
One unsuccessful procedure.
Then Rachel conceived naturally—or so doctors told them.
David had found an old clinic letter among Rachel’s papers after Jason’s death.
It referenced:
CRYOSTORAGE DISPOSITION — CARTER CASE.
Rachel felt dizzy.
“We never stored embryos.”
Susan looked equally confused.
Rachel and Jason never underwent IVF.
Why cryostorage?
Maybe sperm sample.
Jason had provided one during testing.
Then David discovered the clinic had mislabeled several records.
He told Jason.
Jason investigated privately.
Before he could finish, he died.
Again:
No conspiracy.
No suspicious accident.
Police reconstruction was clear.
Jason was speeding in rain.
Tragic.
Not murder.
David then continued Jason’s inquiry.
The clinic:
Evergreen Reproductive Health.
Closed four years ago.
Frank found the correspondence.
Why would he care?
Because uncertainty about Ethan’s legal parentage could affect his trust.
That sounded extreme.
The trust named Ethan Carter specifically.
Biology irrelevant unless challenged.
But Frank apparently thought otherwise.
He asked attorneys anonymous questions about whether a grandchild trust could fail if paternity was inaccurate.
He was looking for ways to reduce Ethan’s claim.
Rachel felt cold rage.
Then she stopped.
Evidence of questions was not evidence he intended to hurt Ethan physically for money.
Do not combine every wrongdoing into one motive.
The laundry-room behavior was about control and anger.
The financial questioning was separate exploitation.
Both serious.
Different.
Then Rachel requested Evergreen records.
Most had transferred to a medical archive company.
Her file existed.
No embryo.
No donor material.
The cryostorage letter was a clerical error.
It belonged to another Carter couple.
Relief.
Jason was almost certainly Ethan’s biological father.
Would they test?
Rachel initially wanted to.
Then asked herself why.
Medical need?
No.
Legal need?
No.
Ethan had never questioned Jason.
Jason was dead.
Testing a nine-year-old merely to satisfy adults’ anxiety could create harm.
She declined.
That was growth.
Then another document surfaced.
David had written:
JASON CONFIRMED. DESTROY FRANK’S COPY.
Confirmed what?
The archived clinic records included a paternity test Jason had privately ordered.
99.99%.
Jason was Ethan’s biological father.
He had apparently panicked over the clerical error, tested, got reassurance, and moved on.
David kept the report.
Frank found it.
So why did Frank continue asking legal questions?
Because he had only seen the erroneous cryostorage letter initially.
He did not know David possessed the confirmation.
Another mystery reduced by evidence.
Then Rachel asked Ethan’s trust attorney whether Frank could ever access the money.
No.
Never.
Then why had he asked Ethan for passwords?
Not trust.
Something else.
Ethan remembered the exact phrase:
“Did Grandpa David give you the birthday password?”
Birthday password.
Rachel knew one.
David used Ethan’s birthday as the PIN on an old tablet.
They found the tablet in storage.
Locked.
Entered Ethan’s birthday.
Opened.
Inside:
Photographs.
Scans.
Audio.
David’s final archive.
And one folder labeled:
FRANK — IF HE EVER TOUCHES THE BOY.
Rachel’s hands started shaking.
David had written that folder eighteen months before he died.
May you like
Before Rachel knew Frank had ever treated Ethan badly.
Her father had known something.
