Chapter 6 - The Locker at the Station
Two days later, Julian called with news. Police had found Diane Foster staying at a motel outside Hartford under a false name.
Before investigators could sit her down, she called Julian directly and asked for immunity. She said she'd erased patient file B-22 on Harlan Reese's orders.
She also said she still had a backup copy.
"Where is it?" I asked.
"She mailed it."
"To who?"
"Margaret Doyle."
The package had arrived at Margaret's apartment the morning after her hospitalization. With no one home to sign for it, it got returned to a distribution center.
Julian retrieved it under police supervision and brought it to the estate that evening.
Inside was a flash drive, a folder of medical records, and a second sealed envelope — addressed to me.
The handwriting wasn't Vivian's.
It was Margaret's.
Renata insisted we open it with her present. Ivy was upstairs with Mrs. Delaney, helping pick out a mobile for Micah's crib.
Marcus,
If you're reading this, then the truth about the infant has already started coming out.
There's another truth I should have told you years ago, but I was afraid of what the clinic would do, and I wasn't sure what kind of man you'd become.
Ivy's mother was my daughter, Caroline. Eight years ago, Caroline went through what she believed was a properly authorized fertility program at Meridian. She was told the biological father had consented to anonymous use of his preserved material.
After Ivy was born, the clinic insisted all records had been destroyed.
They weren't.
Patient file B-22 doesn't belong to the newborn.
It belongs to Ivy.
I stopped reading.
The room seemed to pull away from me.
Renata sank slowly into a chair.
Julian opened the folder with careful hands. On top was a Meridian embryo transfer record dated eight years back. The genetic source ID matched the number on my original storage agreement.
Underneath it sat a lab report built from a sample Margaret had legally preserved during one of Ivy's childhood checkups — a report that hadn't even been finished until that morning, once investigators got a court-appointed advocate to authorize comparing it against my confirmed DNA.
Julian turned to the last page.
His face changed.
"What does it say?" I asked, though part of me already knew.
He slid the report across to me.
Probability of biological paternity: 99.98 percent.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Ivy walked in holding a paper moon she'd cut out for Micah's mobile.
She stopped when she saw our faces.
"What happened?" she asked.
I looked at the child who'd shown up on my porch carrying my son.
The one who'd drawn my arms long enough to reach everybody.
The one who'd asked, so quietly, whether I wanted her to stay.
Before I could find a way to answer her, the phone on Julian's desk rang.
Blocked number.
He answered it and put it on speaker.
For a few seconds there was nothing but the sound of somebody breathing.
Then a woman's voice.
"Marcus."
I knew that voice. I'd been hearing it in dreams for over ten years.
"Vivian?"
The paper moon slipped out of Ivy's fingers.
May you like
The woman on the line drew a shaky breath.
"You found both of them," she whispered. "Now you need to know why someone at Meridian is still looking for a third child."
