Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN WHO WASN’T SUPPOSED TO FIND ME
We did not go to Milwaukee alone.
For once, I listened to Daniel.
Police reached the condo before us.
Mom was found unharmed.
Grant was gone.
He had apparently left through a rear garage exit less than ten minutes before officers arrived.
On the dining table sat the Founders’ Reproductive Data Program agreement.
Mom claimed she barely understood what she had signed.
That became increasingly difficult to believe.
The agreement dated back eleven years.
My mother, father, Thomas Larkin, and two physicians had authorized a pilot research structure using anonymized fertility and genetic information.
“Why is Mom’s signature there?” Vanessa demanded.
Mom sat in the police interview room staring at her hands.
“Because your father needed spousal consent for an investment.”
“That document isn’t just an investment.”
“I didn’t read it.”
I almost laughed.
Apparently nobody in my family read anything until it exploded.
“Did you know Arbor Crest had our medical histories?”
Mom looked up too quickly.
My stomach sank.
“Mom.”
“I gave them family history.”
Vanessa stood so quickly her chair tipped backward.
“You what?”
“It was years ago!”
“What did you give them?”
“Basic information.”
“What information?”
“Pregnancies. Miscarriages. Illnesses. Your grandmother’s ovarian cancer. Family fertility patterns.”
I stared at her.
“Did you give them information about me and Vanessa?”
“We were included as family members.”
“You disclosed our medical history without asking?”
“I didn’t think of it that way.”
“How did you think of it?”
“Research.”
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I asked the most important question.
“Did you give blood samples?”
Mom froze.
Vanessa saw it too.
“Mom?”
“When you girls were teenagers, we participated in a family wellness screening.”
I remembered.
A charity event Dad sponsored.
Blood tests.
Health questionnaires.
We had been told proceeds supported women’s health research.
“You gave Arbor Crest our samples?”
“No. The research organization did.”
“What organization?”
Mom whispered the name.
Northlake Women’s Research Foundation.
Priya had already connected Northlake to Arbor Crest through payment records.
The charity had been a feeder.
We hadn’t become data sources as adults.
We had been enrolled as teenagers.
My phone rang.
Daniel.
“We found Laura Keene.”
The nurse practitioner who accessed my medical records.
“Where?”
“She turned herself in.”
“Why?”
“She says she’s afraid.”
Within an hour, I was sitting behind a one-way glass wall while investigators interviewed Laura.
She was forty-one, exhausted, and visibly terrified.
“I was told the access was authorized,” she said.
“By whom?”
“Dr. Vale.”
Vanessa’s fertility doctor.
“He gave me patient names. I pulled histories. I thought they were pre-screened candidates.”
“Did you access Claire Bennett?”
Laura closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Did Claire authorize it?”
“No.”
“Why did you continue?”
“They paid me.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred dollars per file.”
My body became cold.
“What happened to the information?”
“It went into candidate packets.”
“How many?”
Laura began crying.
“Maybe forty.”
Forty women.
Not nine.
Not six.
Forty.
Then the investigator placed my photograph on the table.
“Do you know this woman?”
Laura looked at me through the photograph.
“Yes.”
“What was different about her?”
Laura swallowed.
“She was priority.”
“Why?”
“Family-linked research history.”
“Explain.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
Laura stared toward the mirrored glass, almost as though she knew I was standing behind it.
Then she whispered, “Because Claire Bennett’s samples were already in the system.”
My knees nearly gave out.
“For how long?”
“Years.”
The investigator leaned forward.
“Was she selected because of her sister’s infertility?”
Laura shook her head.
“No.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“What do you mean?”
“The sister made the recruitment easier.”
“Then why Claire?”
Laura began shaking.
“Because her genetic profile was valuable.”
I gripped the edge of the observation desk.
I wasn’t collateral damage.
I wasn’t merely a convenient relative.
I had been the target.
Vanessa’s need for a surrogate had simply provided a socially acceptable route to me.
The investigator asked, “Valuable for what?”
Laura refused to answer.
Then Daniel entered the observation room.
“There’s someone here asking for you.”
“Who?”
“A woman named Dr. Evelyn Moore.”
I didn’t know the name.
“She says she worked on the original Northlake research program.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why is she here?”
Daniel looked toward the interrogation room.
“Because she saw news of Laura’s surrender and thinks Arbor Crest is about to destroy the old records.”
Evelyn Moore was seventy years old, silver-haired, and furious.
She didn’t sit.
She placed a sealed envelope into my hands.
“I’ve kept this for eleven years.”
“What is it?”
“A letter your mother wrote.”
I looked at Mom across the hallway.
She went white.
I opened it.
The letter was handwritten.
Dr. Moore,
Please remove Claire from all future reproductive research. Robert doesn’t agree, but I am withdrawing my permission as her mother. She is sixteen and does not understand what was collected.
Do not contact our home.
Margaret Bennett.
I looked at Mom.
“You tried to withdraw me.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Your father found out.”
Dad stared at her.
“You told me it was handled.”
“It wasn’t.”
Dr. Moore interrupted.
“Mr. Bennett refused the withdrawal.”
Dad turned toward her.
“That isn’t true.”
“I have the correspondence.”
She opened her bag.
Copies.
Emails.
Letters.
Signatures.
My father’s signature.
Dad’s face collapsed.
Vanessa whispered, “Dad?”
He sat down.
For the first time, he looked completely defeated.
I read one line from an email he had sent eleven years earlier.
Continuation of family participation is essential to the long-term value of the dataset.
Not my health.
Not my consent.
Value.
I looked at him.
“You kept me in a research program because my data was valuable.”
He whispered, “I thought it would help people.”
“You also owned the company.”
“Yes.”
The room went silent.
Then Dr. Moore said something that made every betrayal before it seem smaller.
“Claire, there’s a reason your profile became valuable.”
I looked at her.
“What reason?”
She hesitated.
“Your samples showed an unusual genetic marker associated with ovarian reserve and embryo viability.”
I felt sick.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning Arbor Crest built part of its predictive fertility model using data from women like you.”
“Women like me?”
Dr. Moore shook her head.
“No.”
Her expression changed.
“Primarily you.”
I stared at her.
And for the first time, I understood why someone had photographed me outside my office.
Why Grant had been paid before I signed.
Why Clause Fourteen had been designed to trap me once hormone treatment began.
They didn’t simply want me to carry Vanessa’s child.
May you like
They wanted access to my body again.
And this time, they wanted permission broad enough that I could never easily take it back.
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