Chapter 4 - The Report Dated Before Their Birth
We moved Jonah and Blythe before midnight.
Not to a hospital.
I didn’t trust one.
Not yet.
Prescott activated a secure medical apartment beneath a Mercer-owned building downtown, originally designed for executives requiring private treatment.
Only five people knew the destination.
Myself.
Prescott.
Franklin.
Two nurses.
Elena rode separately.
I almost refused to take her.
Then Blythe woke while we prepared the transport.
She saw Elena standing in the hallway.
“Who’s she?”
“A friend.”
Elena’s face changed at that word.
Blythe studied her.
“You look like Mommy’s picture friend.”
Every adult froze.
“What?” I asked.
Blythe pointed weakly toward Elena.
“Mommy had a picture.”
“What picture?”
“In her blue box.”
My pulse accelerated.
“What blue box?”
“The one in her closet.”
I had emptied Genevieve’s belongings after her death.
There had been no blue box.
“Where?”
“Our old house.”
That meant the lake property.
A home Genevieve and I had used before buying the Chicago estate.
We hadn’t visited in years.
“Are you sure?”
Blythe nodded.
“Mommy told me not to touch it.”
“How old were you?”
“Four.”
Genevieve died when the twins were four.
She had hidden something before the crash.
Something even I had missed.
I kissed Blythe’s forehead.
“Get some sleep.”
Her eyes moved to Elena again.
“Is she gonna help us?”
Elena’s face almost broke.
“I’m going to try,” she whispered.
At the secure apartment, Franklin began reviewing the seven-year-old report.
He worked for nearly two hours before calling me into the medical office.
Elena joined us.
On the wall, genetic data filled three screens.
Franklin pointed to a sequence.
“This report contains something unusual.”
“What?”
“A marker for an inherited marrow disorder.”
“I thought you already said that.”
“I did. But I’ve compared it with the twins’ current sequencing.”
“And?”
“The match is exact.”
“Meaning?”
“Whoever created this report had access to the genetic profile responsible for their vulnerability before they were born.”
I stared at the screen.
“That means the embryo.”
“Yes.”
“Could this have happened naturally?”
“Yes.”
“Could the clinic have known?”
“If they tested for it.”
“Would they?”
“Not routinely seven years ago. But Novagen’s research division absolutely had that capability.”
Elena folded her arms tightly.
“So Genevieve was right.”
Franklin didn’t answer.
I did.
“We don’t know that yet.”
I needed evidence.
Something stronger than grief.
Something stronger than suspicion.
At 4:10 a.m., Prescott arrived.
“The lake house is secure.”
“You searched it?”
“Exterior only. Waiting for you.”
“Why?”
“Because we found signs someone entered within the last month.”
I looked at him.
“The place has been empty for years.”
“Exactly.”
We left before sunrise.
The lake house stood north of the city, surrounded by bare trees and cold water.
Genevieve had loved that house.
She used to dance in the kitchen.
Paint badly in the sunroom.
Force me to turn off my phone for one hour every Sunday.
Walking inside felt like entering a life I had abandoned.
Dust covered most surfaces.
Except one.
The master bedroom closet.
Someone had disturbed it.
Prescott’s men searched.
Nothing.
Then I remembered something Blythe had said.
Blue box.
Genevieve liked hiding birthday gifts beneath removable closet panels because Jonah once found every gift in the house.
I knelt.
Lifted the cedar panel.
There it was.
A small blue metal box.
Locked.
I stared at it for several seconds.
Prescott handed me a tool.
I broke the lock.
Inside were photographs.
USB drives.
A notebook.
And one envelope with my name.
I opened the envelope.
Genevieve’s handwriting.
Lawson,
If you are reading this, something happened that I was unable to stop.
My hands shook.
I continued.
You are going to be angry that I kept this from you. You should be. But anger means you are alive, and if you are alive, I made at least one correct decision.
I discovered something about the fertility program that gave us Jonah and Blythe.
Please understand this first: I would choose our children again in every lifetime.
Nothing written below changes that.
The clinic participated in a private Novagen program called Project Lark.
Patients were never told.
Embryos were screened using research protocols not included in consent forms.
Some embryos were selected based on genetic traits useful to Novagen’s long-term therapy trials.
Our children were part of that program.
My vision blurred.
I forced myself to continue.
I do not believe anyone intentionally gave Jonah and Blythe leukemia.
But I believe Novagen knowingly selected embryos carrying a rare genetic vulnerability because they wanted to study future treatment responses.
They gambled with children who had not yet been born.
I found at least eleven families.
Three children are already sick.
My blood turned cold.
Eleven families.
Three sick.
Genevieve had found others.
I read faster.
Do not confront Novagen directly.
Someone inside Mercer Holdings has been feeding them information.
They know where I go.
They know what I search.
They knew I visited Franklin.
I do not know who it is.
Trust evidence, not loyalty.
Under that line was a name.
DR. MIRIAM VOSS.
Former Novagen geneticist.
Find her before they do.
The final paragraph nearly stopped my heart.
If anything happens to me, Elena Ward has the one document I could not safely keep here.
She does not know everything.
Protect her.
Protect the children.
And Lawson—
There was an ink smear across the paper.
I recognized it immediately.
Genevieve had been crying.
I am sorry I made you believe I was pulling away from you.
I was trying to make them believe it too.
I loved you every day.
Even on the days I had to pretend I didn’t.
G.
For two years, one of my greatest regrets had been believing my marriage had grown cold before Genevieve died.
Now I understood.
She had been protecting me.
Poorly.
Painfully.
But deliberately.
Prescott stood several feet away.
I handed him the letter.
“Find Miriam Voss.”
He read the name.
Then his expression shifted.
“What?”
“Lawson.”
“What?”
“Miriam Voss died five years ago.”
I stared at him.
“How?”
“According to public records, suicide.”
Of course.
Another dead person.
Another convenient ending.
Elena picked up one of the photographs from the box.
“Wait.”
“What?”
She turned it toward us.
Genevieve stood outside a laboratory with three people.
One was Franklin.
One was a woman I assumed was Miriam.
The third man had been partly cut from the photograph.
Only his arm and watch remained visible.
Prescott stared at the watch.
I saw the recognition before he spoke.
“What?”
He looked at me.
“That watch was custom-made.”
“So?”
“Only twelve exist.”
My patience disappeared.
“Whose is it?”
Prescott looked like he wished he could answer differently.
“Your father’s.”
The room became silent.
My father, Conrad Mercer, had died eight years earlier.
One year before the twins were born.
Which meant either the photograph was older than we thought—
or someone else had been wearing his watch.
I turned it over.
Genevieve had written a date on the back.
Seven years earlier.
Three months before Jonah and Blythe were conceived.
May you like
And beneath the date she had written a single sentence:
LAWSON MUST NEVER LEARN WHO REALLY FUNDED PROJECT LARK.
