Chapter 4 - Dr. Kessler's Promise
Adrian Kessler had been dead for three years.
At least according to public records.
A biomedical researcher.
Regenerative tissue specialist.
Brilliant.
Controversial.
His laboratory closed after accusations of unauthorized human experimentation.
Claire had never met him face-to-face.
The man who contacted her called himself Kessler.
Voice only.
Encrypted messages.
Victor immediately understood.
Someone was using a dead scientist's identity.
Eleanor's story went further.
Six years earlier, real Kessler told her Emily's body might support an experimental neural preservation procedure.
Not resurrection.
Preservation.
Eleanor signed.
Then panicked.
Days later she demanded Emily's body back.
Kessler refused.
Eleanor threatened police.
Suddenly the body was returned.
Funeral proceeded.
“What did they do?”
“I don't know.”
“Did you verify the body?”
Eleanor began crying.
“No.”
Victor stepped backward.
The coffin had been closed after the hospital viewing because of the extent of injuries.
Had they buried Emily?
Or something else?
The DNA result proved only that the mysterious woman was Eleanor's biological daughter.
There was another possibility.
A possibility Eleanor had hidden for thirty years.
Victor saw it before she spoke.
“You had another child.”
Eleanor looked at the floor.
Claire stared.
Victor whispered:
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
Before Victor.
Before their marriage.
Eleanor gave birth at seventeen.
A girl.
Adopted privately.
Victor had never known.
“What was her name?”
“I never named her.”
“Who adopted her?”
“I don't know.”
Victor laughed once.
Thirty-eight years of marriage.
And there was still an entire daughter he had never heard about.
If the mysterious brunette was Eleanor's first child, DNA could make her appear to be Emily's sister.
Not Emily.
But why the face?
Why the song?
Why the scars?
Someone had deliberately constructed resemblance.
Claire suddenly remembered something.
“The baby.”
Everyone turned.
The fake pregnancy was not simply about hiding a child.
The messages repeatedly called the infant:
continuation.
Kessler's research had involved preserved cells.
Genetic replication.
Regeneration.
Victor felt sick.
“Is the baby Emily's?”
Claire did not know.
But she had stolen one medical report from the underground nursery.
She produced a photograph.
PATIENT E-2.
Genetic donor:
E.V.
Victor stared.
Emily Vale.
Below:
GESTATIONAL CARRIER — C.H.
Claire Hart.
Claire.
Victor looked at her.
“You were pregnant.”
Claire's face collapsed.
“Yes.”
The fake belly had hidden the opposite truth.
Claire had genuinely been pregnant.
May you like
She had given birth seven months earlier.
And someone had taken the baby.
