Chapter 4 - The Fourth Embryo
The answer did not come immediately.
Records had been transferred, signatures had been scanned, and the old clinic had changed ownership twice.
But one name appeared on the release authorization.
Linda Whitmore.
Ethan's mother.
She had no legal right to use an embryo created decades earlier without following strict consent procedures, and the clinic's lawyers immediately began investigating whether documents had been forged.
But another name appeared.
Mine.
Claire Whitmore.
My signature was attached to a consent form.
Except I had never signed it.
Ethan looked at me across my hospital room.
“What did she do?”
I didn't know.
The police didn't know.
Even the doctors didn't know.
Then Detective Martinez found something on Linda's phone.
A text message sent seven months earlier.
It was addressed to someone saved only as D.
The message read:
Everything is ready. Claire doesn't know.
The reply said:
Then keep it that way.
May you like
That single message changed the investigation.
Linda had not acted alone.
