Chapter 7 - The Replacement Plan
Corinne finally stopped pretending she had only wanted a baby.
She wanted leverage.
Her marriage to Ethan was already deteriorating.
Ethan had begun noticing Maisie's fear around Corinne.
He questioned unexplained bruises.
Corinne knew he might ask for a custody evaluation.
Then Morrow contacted her.
He knew Maisie's records were vulnerable.
If Ethan discovered Maisie was not biologically his, he might reopen everything.
That could expose Larkspur.
Morrow proposed a story.
Corinne would become pregnant.
The marriage would stabilize.
Maisie would remain legally Carter.
No one would question old fertility records.
Corinne told herself she was protecting the family.
Ethan stared at her through the interview-room glass.
The phrase should have disgusted him by then.
“What did Morrow offer you?”
“Money.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred thousand.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“And you took it?”
“Part.”
Bank records showed $120,000.
The rest conditioned on maintaining confidentiality.
That changed the story.
Corinne had not merely been manipulated.
She had been paid.
Then why abuse Maisie?
Corinne’s answer was more disturbing because it was psychologically ordinary.
She started seeing Maisie as the reason everything was collapsing.
The trust.
The fertility records.
Ethan's suspicion.
The lost embryos.
Her own infertility fears.
Every time Maisie cried, Corinne felt accused.
Every time Ethan comforted her, Corinne felt replaced.
She turned resentment toward a toddler.
No elaborate conspiracy required.
Ethan wanted to hear nothing else.
Then Morrow disappeared.
His clinic closed overnight.
Accounts frozen.
Car abandoned at Newark Airport.
Passport not used.
Police considered him a fugitive.
Daniel believed he would go to Larkspur's old embryo-storage facility.
Why?
Because one tank there remained undocumented.
Tank 6.
The one containing Corinne's missing embryos.
Investigators secured the facility.
Tank 6 was not empty.
It contained thirty-one cryogenic samples.
Many labels were inconsistent.
One belonged to Ethan and Claire.
Impossible.
Their embryo child Ava already existed.
Had they created more than one embryo?
Yes.
Ethan remembered seven viable embryos from treatment.
Only one was supposedly transferred.
The rest were declared nonviable or destroyed.
Apparently not all were.
Ethan felt sick.
His biological material had been retained for years without his knowledge.
Then another sample label appeared:
CARTER-MORROW-04.
Rachel frowned.
“Morrow?”
Not Andrew.
Another Morrow family member?
Records showed Dr. Andrew Morrow's wife:
Helen Carter Morrow.
Ethan froze.
Carter.
No known relation.
Then Daniel searched.
Helen Carter was Ethan's paternal aunt.
His father's younger sister.
Ethan had been told she died as an infant.
She had not.
Robert Carter, Ethan's father, had grown up believing his sister died.
Helen was adopted privately.
Years later she married Andrew Morrow.
The fertility doctor who treated Ethan was his uncle by marriage.
Ethan stood.
“Did he know?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Since before you met him.”
Morrow had not randomly become Ethan's specialist.
Helen arranged it.
Why?
Then investigators found a letter Helen wrote years earlier.
ETHAN IS THE LAST CARTER WHO CAN CORRECT WHAT ROBERT DID.
Ethan stared.
His father Robert had done something.
May you like
Something connected to Larkspur.
Something Helen believed Ethan had to fix.
