Chapter 12 - My Blood
I was sixty-one.
Why would Harrison need me?
Genetic testing gave the answer.
I possessed a rare inherited marker shared with Melissa and Sophie.
But unlike them, I also carried something else.
An antibody profile valuable to Harrison’s research.
The transplant network was only half his business.
The other half was experimental immune therapy sold privately to billionaires desperate for time.
Melissa had discovered that too.
And Harrison had discovered me through her medical records.
Suddenly Melissa’s death looked different.
She had not merely been hiding evidence.
She had been hiding me.
Her letter contained one sentence I could barely read:
Mom, if they discover what your blood can do, they will never stop.
I cried for my daughter.
Then I became useful.
Harrison wanted me alive.
That meant he could be baited.
I contacted him through Caleb.
“I’ll cooperate.”
Agent Cole objected.
Thomas objected louder.
I ignored both.
Harrison responded within two hours.
He wanted a private meeting.
No police.
Of course.
We gave him what he expected to see.
Me.
Alone.
A black funeral dress.
Melissa’s necklace around my throat.
The meeting location was an abandoned medical office.
Harrison appeared from a rear corridor.
Older than I remembered.
Silver ring.
Calm eyes.
“You look like your daughter.”
“Melissa looked like me.”
He smiled.
“Still correcting people.”
“You killed her.”
“Carelessness killed her.”
“Your carelessness.”
He did not argue.
That told me more than denial.
I asked where the Orpheus-like records—actually his donor database—were kept.
He laughed.
“You didn’t come for a confession.”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“The truth.”
He stepped closer.
“Truth is expensive.”
“So was my daughter.”
His smile vanished.
Then I noticed his eyes move toward my necklace.
He recognized it.
Why?
Melissa’s necklace was ordinary.
Or so I thought.
Harrison reached toward it.
I stepped back.
“Where did you get that?”
“It was Melissa’s.”
“No.”
For the first time, Harrison looked genuinely frightened.
“That belonged to Rebecca.”
My sister?
Impossible.
Melissa had worn it since college.
Harrison grabbed my shoulder.
“Where is Rebecca?”
Federal agents burst in.
Harrison tried to run.
They tackled him before he reached the corridor.
As Agent Cole cuffed him, Harrison screamed at me:
“YOU STILL DON’T KNOW WHO MELISSA’S MOTHER IS!”
The room seemed to tilt.
I stared at him.
“What did you say?”
Harrison laughed from the floor.
“You spent twenty-nine years calling her your daughter.”
My hands went cold.
May you like
Then he looked directly at me.
“Ask Rebecca why Melissa’s original birth certificate disappeared.”
