Claire’s signature appeared on consent forms. Dates aligned with her treatment at Bellwether. A transfer had occurred eleven days after our pregnancy ended.
The embryo code matched the tag around Sophia’s neck.
I turned page after page until I reached the surrogate profile.
The identifying information had been blacked out.
“Take this off.”
“I cannot.”
“You expect me to believe you came here to help while withholding the identity of the woman who gave birth to my daughter?”
Keller’s expression tightened.
“The surrogate did not merely give birth to her.”
“What does that mean?”
He looked toward the closed library doors.
“It means the transfer records are not the last secret Claire kept from you.”
My pulse began to rise again.
Keller opened another folder and removed a DNA report.
“I ordered this test after the child was born. Claire had instructed me to confirm parentage before any legal papers were prepared.”
I reached for the report.
The father’s result was clear.
Probability of paternity: 99.99 percent.
I gripped the page.
Sophia was mine.
Not symbolically. Not because she had chosen the word Daddy.
Mine.
I forced myself to keep reading.
The maternal comparison appeared beneath it.
I stopped.
“This says Claire was excluded.”
Keller nodded.
“The embryo transferred to the surrogate was not the embryo created from Claire’s egg.”
The room fell silent.
“That is impossible.”
“The storage tag belonged to your embryo. The transfer sheet listed your embryo. But the genetic sample did not match Claire.”
“You told me the records had been duplicated.”
“Yes.”
“Then what was transferred?”
“I don’t know.”
“You tested the child and never told me?”
“I never received the chance. Elena disappeared with the baby before the results were finalized.”
I put the report down as carefully as I could.
“So Sophia is biologically mine, but not Claire’s.”
“That is what the test indicated.”
“Whose egg was used?”
“We could not determine that without testing potential relatives.”
“Did Claire know?”
“I don’t believe so.”
The answer was almost worse than a lie.
Claire had risked everything to preserve what she believed was our child.
Someone had changed the embryo.
Or the records.
Or both.
“Why did Elena take the baby?”
Keller rubbed his forehead.
“The surrogate contacted her after the delivery. She believed someone had been following her. Elena moved them to a private apartment.”
“Them?”
“The surrogate and the baby.”
“What happened to the surrogate?”
“I don’t know.”
I stared at him.
“Everyone connected to this child disappears, and you arrive at my gate the same day she calls me Daddy.”
“I came because the archive access included a message.”
He reached into the case and removed a printed sheet.
Only one sentence appeared on it.
THE CHILD IS NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO SURVIVED.
I read it twice.
“What does this mean?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
I thought of Claire’s recording. Elena’s disappearance. The unidentified surrogate. The duplicated embryo number.
Then another possibility surfaced.
A terrible, hopeful, impossible possibility.
