The hardest part was accepting that there had never been a Claire-and-Julian embryo.
For years I had carried that idea like a small private grave.
Our embryos.
Our last possibility.
Our shared loss.
Even after everything Julian did, I had believed the remaining frozen embryo represented one untouched piece of the marriage we once had.
Now even that had been manufactured.
Naomi sat across from me while Ruiz reviewed the hidden North River records.
“Did you know Julian had male-factor infertility?”
“No.”
“Were you ever told ICSI or donor sperm might be required?”
“No.”
“Did you sign donor-consent forms?”
“No.”
“Could you have signed them without understanding?”
“I read everything.”
My voice hardened.
“I was desperate, not unconscious.”
She nodded.
“I needed you to say that.”
The hidden server contained Julian’s semen analyses.
Three tests.
All devastatingly clear.
No viable sperm suitable for IVF.
Yet the official file I had received showed normal results.
Someone had replaced the laboratory pages.
I remembered apologizing to Julian after my second miscarriage.
My body keeps failing us.
He had held me and said, Don’t blame yourself.
He already knew the medical reality had been rewritten to make me believe the problem belonged to me.
I had injected hormones.
Endured procedures.
Blamed my uterus.
Blamed my age.
Blamed stress.
He had watched.
“Who chose Peter’s specimen?” I asked.
“Helga, according to what we know.”
“And the second embryo?”
Ruiz turned the laptop.
“There’s a specimen code.”
PW-4471 had created Noah.
The second embryo listed specimen code SH-1908.
My pulse stopped.
SH.
Samuel Hartwell.
“No.”
Ruiz did not speak.
“No.”
Naomi reached toward me.
I moved away.
“My father was not a sperm donor.”
“We don’t know what SH means yet.”
“Yes, you do.”
Nobody answered.
I stared at the code.
Samuel Hartwell.
My father.
The possibility was biologically horrifying.
An embryo created from my egg and my father’s sperm would carry an extreme degree of genetic relatedness.
Surely no legitimate embryologist would create it.
Surely even North River—
Then I remembered how many times I had already used the word surely.
“Test the embryo.”
“We need to locate it first.”
“Find any sample associated with SH-1908.”
Ruiz had already ordered that search.
North River’s archived paper logs contained the code.
Not under donor sperm.
Under research reference specimens transferred years earlier from the Hartwell Foundation’s medical biobank.
My stomach turned.
My father had stored samples for cardiac research after his cancer diagnosis.
Blood.
Tissue.
Possibly reproductive material.
But why would anyone use it with my egg?
“That makes no sense,” Naomi said.
Ruiz agreed.
“Even Helga’s symbolic obsession has limits.”
“Does it?”
“Creating an embryo from a father and daughter would introduce obvious genetic risk and would be almost impossible to explain if discovered.”
“Maybe it wasn’t created from my egg.”
The thought came suddenly.
Everyone looked at me.
“What if the embryo itself is mislabeled?”
Ruiz nodded slowly.
“Possible.”
“If SH-1908 belongs to my father, perhaps the egg belongs to someone else.”
“Then why put my name on it?”
“To hide something.”
The answer arrived three hours later.
A former North River embryologist named Dana Cho had seen the news and contacted investigators.
She had worked during my IVF cycle.
She remembered the specimen codes.
More importantly, she had kept contemporaneous notes after noticing irregular instructions from Dr. Vale.
Cho joined by secure video.
She looked nervous.
“I should have reported it.”
“Report what?” Ruiz asked.
“Two embryos were created under Mrs. Bennett’s cycle number that did not match the standard worksheet.”
My hands went cold.
“What were the pairings?”
“The first used Claire Bennett’s oocyte and PW-4471.”
“Peter Weber.”
“I didn’t know the donor identity.”
“And the second?”
Cho looked at her notes.
“Egg source AW-1908. Sperm source SH-1908.”
“Not my egg?”
“No.”
Relief came so violently I nearly cried.
Then confusion replaced it.
“Why was it listed as mine?”
“Dr. Vale ordered both embryos moved under your cycle after fertilization.”
“Who are AW and SH?”
“I don’t know.”
The Hartwell biobank records provided the answer.
SH-1908: Samuel Hartwell.
AW-1908: Anneliese Weber.
Sophie’s mother.
Peter’s mother.
I stared at the names.
My father.
Sophie’s mother.
“What?”
Sophie was beside me.
She looked equally stunned.
“My mother and your father?”
Cho continued.
“The embryo was created from previously stored research material. I thought it was an experimental preservation case with special authorization.”
“Was it viable?”
“Yes.”
“Why create it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who ordered it?”
“Dr. Vale.”
“Who paid?”
“Bennett Biomedical Foundation.”
Of course.
Klaus’s money.
Helga’s design.
But the pairing was different from anything we had imagined.
Samuel Hartwell and Anneliese Weber.
My father and Peter’s mother.
Why?
Sophie whispered, “They knew each other.”
“Peter brought my father the evidence.”
“No. Before that.”
I turned.
“What?”
“My mother mentioned Samuel once when I was a teenager.”
“How?”
“She said he had helped her during a difficult time.”
“What time?”
“After Peter was born.”
My skin tightened.
“Were they involved?”
“I don’t know.”
Ruiz requested records from the Hartwell Foundation archives.
One old photograph surfaced.
A medical conference in Munich.
My father stood beside a younger Anneliese Weber.
The date was thirty-two years earlier.
Before Peter’s death.
Before I met Julian.
Before most of this conspiracy.
On the back, someone had written:
Samuel & Anneliese—Heidelberg cardiac cohort.
Sophie stared.
“My mother participated in your father’s research.”
That explained stored biological material.
Not the embryo.
“Did either consent to reproductive use?”
Naomi asked.
The answer was almost certainly no.
Cho confirmed the worksheet contained no valid donor-consent forms.
“So someone created an embryo from two research participants,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Then hid it under my IVF cycle.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Cho looked miserable.
“I don’t know.”
Ruiz did.
Or at least she had a theory.
“Insurance.”
I turned.
“For whom?”
“Helga.”
I waited.
“If Peter’s paternity became public and the Bennett succession collapsed into litigation, Helga may have wanted another biological link between the Weber and Hartwell families.”
“That embryo has no Bennett genetics.”
“Correct.”
“Then it cannot affect the trust.”
“Not genetically.”
“Then why preserve it?”
Sophie suddenly stood.
“My mother knew what happened to Peter.”
We looked at her.
“She must have.”
“How?”
“Peter called her before he died.”
“You never said that.”
“I didn’t know until later. Mom told me once when she was sick.”
“What did he say?”
“That he had found proof and Samuel would protect it.”
Sophie paced.
“After Peter died, Mom became terrified.”
“Of the Bennetts?”
“Yes.”
“Did she ever meet Helga?”
“Several times.”
“After the crash?”
“Yes.”
The pieces shifted.
Helga may have taken biological samples from two people tied to Peter’s evidence—Samuel and Anneliese—and created an embryo as leverage.
But leverage against whom?
Klaus?
Julian?
My father?
“Maybe it wasn’t Helga,” I said.
Ruiz looked at me.
“Who else?”
“Klaus.”
Sophie stopped pacing.
“Klaus had access to both research programs.”
Yes.
Klaus had funded Peter’s sample retention.
Klaus had negotiated with my father.
Klaus had bribed police.
He also claimed not to know the remaining embryo existed.
But Klaus had lied for decades.
“Ask him about AW-1908 and SH-1908.”
Ruiz did.
Klaus requested an attorney before answering.
That alone told us the codes meant something.
Eventually he agreed to a recorded interview.
I watched remotely.
Ruiz placed photographs of my father and Anneliese on the table.
“Did you know them?”
“Yes.”
“Did they have a relationship?”
Klaus looked at the photographs.
“Not romantic, if that is what you mean.”
“Why were their reproductive specimens stored?”
“Research.”
“Why was an embryo created?”
Klaus closed his eyes.
“I told Vale to create it.”
My stomach dropped.
“Why?”
Ruiz asked the same question.
Klaus looked exhausted.
“Samuel asked me.”
I stood.
“No.”
Ruiz continued.
“Dr. Hartwell requested creation of an embryo?”
“Yes.”
“From his sperm and Anneliese Weber’s egg?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Klaus stared at the table.
“Because Anneliese was dying.”
Sophie gasped.
Her mother had died four years after Peter.
Cancer.
“What does that have to do with creating an embryo?”
“She wanted another child.”
Sophie whispered, “No.”
Klaus continued.
“After Peter died, Anneliese became obsessed with what had been taken from her.”
“And Samuel agreed to father a child?”
“He offered stored material.”
I could not reconcile this with my father.
“He was married to my mother.”
“Yes.”
“Did she know?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Anneliese intend to carry the embryo?”
“No. She was too ill.”
“Then who?”
“A surrogate was discussed.”
“Was there consent?”
“Anneliese signed.”
“And Samuel?”
“Yes.”
“Where are the forms?”
“Helga took them.”
My head spun.
The embryo had not begun as a crime.
Maybe.
It had begun as a strange private agreement between two grieving people.
But then it was hidden under my IVF cycle.
“Why attach it to Claire?” Ruiz asked.
Klaus hesitated.
“That was Helga.”
Of course.
“Why?”
“She discovered the embryo after Samuel and Anneliese had both died.”
“And?”
“She believed it gave her leverage over Claire.”
“How?”
“If Claire discovered Julian’s approach was arranged, Helga could reveal that Samuel had secretly created a child with another woman.”
I felt sick.
Blackmail.
Even my father’s private decisions had become currency.
“Did Julian know?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Before he proposed.”
The answer hit differently now.
Julian had not merely searched me for evidence.
He knew a secret about my father that I did not.
A secret his mother could use if I became difficult.
“Why keep the embryo alive?”
“Helga never destroys leverage.”
That sentence I believed completely.
“Then why did Julian want it destroyed?”
“Because he feared DNA testing would expose that it wasn’t yours.”
“And once that happened, investigators would discover the hidden records.”
“Yes.”
“And Peter.”
“Yes.”
Everything connected.
The remaining embryo was not valuable because Julian wanted it.
It was dangerous because it proved North River had been used as a vault for family secrets.
Ruiz asked, “Where would Helga send it?”
Klaus looked toward the camera.
He knew I was watching.
“To Anneliese’s intended surrogate.”
Sophie stood.
“What?”
Ruiz asked, “Who?”
Klaus answered.
“Johanna Fischer.”
Lena’s mother.
The room went silent.
Peter’s former girlfriend.
The woman who had secretly carried Peter’s daughter.
Years later, she had apparently agreed to carry a child for Peter’s grieving mother and my father.
“Did Johanna know?”
“Yes.”
“Would she still do it now?”
Klaus shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
German police reached Johanna’s home.
Empty.
Lena called her mother.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then Lena received a message.
From Johanna.
I’m sorry. Helga said this is what Anneliese wanted.
Attached was a photograph.
A cryogenic transport container.
My missing embryo.
And beneath it, a clinic appointment scheduled for the following morning.
Embryo transfer.
Johanna intended to carry it.
I stared at the image.
An embryo created decades of secrets after Peter’s death was about to become another child born into them.
But this time, unlike Noah and Rachel’s baby, there might still be time to stop the transfer before another pregnancy began.
Click here to continue reading: PART 16: We Reached Johanna Before the Transfer, but Julian’s Final Hidden File Proved One More Pregnancy Had Already Begun Months Earlier
At Dinner My Husband’s Family Switched to German, Certain I Couldn’t Understand What They Had Planned for Me
Part 15 of 20
