Chapter 10 - Gary’s Bargain
Gary talked after his arrest.
Not because he regretted anything.
Because Linda was facing serious charges and he wanted negotiating leverage.
Twenty years earlier, Gary discovered Halcyon planned locating Evelyn through surviving descendants.
Caroline had died.
I was eleven.
Gary knew I wasn’t biologically related to Evelyn.
But Halcyon didn’t.
So he planted falsified records suggesting I might be.
That made me valuable.
Protected.
Monitored.
Untouchable.
“What were they protecting me from?”
Gary looked at Dad.
“Harold’s old partners.”
The adoption network hadn’t disappeared when Harold died.
It evolved.
Children were no longer literally moved between families.
Instead:
Embryos.
Genetic samples.
Fertility clinics.
Inheritance planning.
A cleaner version of the same crime.
Someone believed I carried evidence through my DNA.
Not metaphorically.
A patented genetic marker tied to Halcyon’s original treatment.
That was why testing continued.
They were looking for descendants carrying a rare variant.
Gary’s children didn’t.
Cole apparently did.
Ellie partially did.
But I—
Gary claimed nobody had successfully tested me.
“How is that possible? You had my blood.”
“The sample wasn’t yours.”
“What?”
Thanksgiving.
The bloody paper towel Linda collected?
She swapped it.
Why?
Linda didn’t want Gary involving me.
That surprised me.
“Linda protected me?”
Gary laughed bitterly.
“Sometimes.”
Linda hated the entire scheme.
But she loved Gary.
So she participated selectively.
She sabotaged some tests.
Destroyed others.
Then Ellie reached for Cole’s medicated drink.
Linda panicked.
She thought Ellie might ingest something intended to make Cole sleepy before another blood draw.
Instead of admitting what they were doing—
she threw the coffee.
A monstrous decision made in a second to conceal another monstrous decision made over months.
“And Ben?”
Gary looked away.
“What about him?”
“Did he know?”
“No.”
“Anything?”
“Only that we distrusted you.”
So Ben’s DNA-test betrayal was his own cowardice.
Not conspiracy.
Strangely, that hurt more cleanly.
Then Gary offered the name behind the modern network.
Dr. Marcus Vale.
Chief executive of Halcyon Biologics.
Public philanthropist.
Children’s hospital donor.
Genetic-medicine pioneer.
And according to Gary—
the man ordering the secret testing.
Dad asked:
“Why does Vale need Cole?”
“He doesn’t.”
“Then who?”
Gary looked at me.
“Ellie.”
My blood froze.
“Why?”
“Because her partial match isn’t partial.”
“What?”
Mercer Diagnostics falsified it.
Ellie had the strongest match they had ever found.
To the original Halcyon biological sample.
“What does that mean?”
Gary leaned closer.
“It means your daughter can prove who the original donor was.”
“And who was that?”
He looked toward Evelyn.
She closed her eyes.
“My sister.”
Evelyn had a younger sister.
Rose.
A physician.
The researcher erased from Halcyon’s patent history.
Rose disappeared in 1981.
Everyone assumed she fled.
Evelyn knew otherwise.
Halcyon killed her.
Or believed they did.
Then Dad asked:
“Why would Ellie match Rose so strongly?”
Nobody answered.
Because that would mean Rose had descendants.
A child.
A family line.
Somewhere.
And Ellie belonged to it.
Through whom?
Me?
Or Ben?
Independent genetic analysis answered three days later.
Not me.
Ben.
Ben was biologically descended from Rose Shaw.
Gary wasn’t his biological father.
My husband had just discovered that the man who raised him wasn’t related to him at all.
May you like
And Linda—
wasn’t his biological mother either.
