Chapter 5 - What Genevieve Hid From Me
For most of my life, Conrad Mercer had been the standard against which I measured power.
My father built Mercer Holdings before I was old enough to understand what a balance sheet was.
He owned trucking companies before logistics became glamorous.
Warehouses before real estate funds wanted them.
Data centers before half the financial world understood how valuable they would become.
He taught me three rules.
Never borrow what you can own.
Never threaten when silence is more effective.
And never let family become a weakness someone else can exploit.
He died of a heart attack at sixty-one.
Or so I had been told.
Now his watch appeared in a photograph tied to a medical program involving my children.
I called Mercer’s private archivist.
“Pull every record connected to Novagen from the final ten years of my father’s life.”
“All divisions?”
“All.”
“That could be thousands—”
“Now.”
By noon, the answer arrived.
Mercer Capital had been an early investor in Novagen.
Not seven percent.
Twenty-two percent.
Held through layered trusts.
The position had later been transferred and diluted.
“Who authorized Project Lark funding?” I asked.
The archivist hesitated.
“Sir, the project name does not appear directly.”
“What does?”
“A biomedical research vehicle called Arcadia Initiative.”
“Owner?”
Another hesitation.
“Conrad Mercer.”
I sat in silence.
My father.
Genevieve had discovered something tied to my family before our children were even conceived.
Elena sat across the room.
“What?”
“My father funded it.”
She looked stunned.
“Did Genevieve know?”
“Apparently.”
“Then why marry you?”
I looked at her sharply.
“She married me before any of this.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know.”
The question still hurt.
Had Genevieve known something about my father that she never told me?
Had Project Lark been the reason she chose our fertility clinic?
No.
I refused that thought.
Then I found another page in her notebook.
Arcadia began as legitimate research into inherited immune disorders. Conrad funded it after Lawson’s mother died.
I stopped.
My mother had died when I was twelve.
Autoimmune complications.
Suddenly Project Lark was no longer an abstract conspiracy.
It had begun in my family.
Genevieve’s notes explained more.
Conrad apparently believed hereditary immune disorders had destroyed his wife.
He funded private genetic research with obsessive intensity.
At first, it had been ethical.
Then Novagen executives expanded the project after his death.
They used fertility clinics to identify embryos with rare profiles.
Not to deliberately create disease.
To create a population they could follow.
The distinction was morally monstrous.
Children became future data.
Parents became unwitting participants.
Jonah and Blythe became numbers in a study.
I turned pages until I found one sentence underlined three times.
The company believes Project Lark will produce the most valuable personalized oncology patents in the world.
There it was.
Money.
Always money.
Billions of dollars in future treatments.
Diseases they had not necessarily caused but had knowingly allowed to emerge in children they selected.
I closed the notebook.
“Who runs Novagen’s research division?”
Prescott answered.
“Elias Vane.”
I knew Elias.
Everyone in my circles did.
Sixty-four.
Polished.
Charitable.
The kind of man who donated pediatric wings to hospitals and then had his name engraved six feet tall outside.
“He knew my father.”
“Very well.”
“Was he at his funeral?”
“Front row.”
That memory returned.
Elias beside the coffin.
Hand on my shoulder.
Your father believed medicine would change the world.
At the time, I thought it was sentimental nonsense.
Now it sounded like confession.
“Bring me everything on Vane.”
Prescott left.
Elena watched me.
“What are you going to do?”
“Find evidence.”
“And then?”
“Make sure he can never touch another family.”
She looked uncertain.
“What?”
“Genevieve was afraid of what you would do.”
“She should have trusted me.”
“She did.”
“Not enough.”
Elena shook her head.
“No. She trusted you completely.”
“Then why hide everything?”
“Because she knew how you respond when someone threatens your family.”
“And?”
“She thought you would attack the threat before understanding it.”
I looked at her.
She was right.
That irritated me more than if she had been wrong.
My phone rang.
Franklin.
“Lawson, get back here.”
“What happened?”
“It’s Jonah.”
The drive downtown took eleven minutes.
It should have taken twenty-five.
Jonah’s fever had spiked.
His blood pressure was falling.
Doctors moved around him.
Blythe cried from the other bed.
I stood outside the room feeling exactly as powerless as before.
Then Elena entered.
She didn’t ask permission.
She walked to Blythe.
Sat beside her.
And quietly began telling her a story.
Something about a girl who believed stars were holes punched into the sky so people in heaven could look through.
Blythe stopped crying.
I stared through the glass.
Elena brushed her hand across Blythe’s forehead.
Gentle.
Natural.
Almost maternal.
For one dangerous second, memory replaced reality.
Genevieve had done the same thing.
Same slow movement.
Same expression.
Then Franklin emerged.
“Jonah’s stable.”
My knees weakened.
“What happened?”
“Progression.”
“Can we treat it?”
“We’re buying hours.”
“Hours?”
He looked exhausted.
“Lawson, we need the rest of Genevieve’s evidence. If Project Lark tracked these children, they may have treatment-response data.”
“Meaning Novagen might know what works.”
“Yes.”
“And hasn’t disclosed it.”
“Possibly.”
That possibility was enough.
Prescott returned with a tablet.
“We found something.”
“What?”
“Elias Vane has a private research facility outside Chicago.”
“Public?”
“No.”
“Owned through what?”
“Arcadia Initiative.”
The name punched through the room.
“Location?”
“An industrial property near Aurora.”
“Security?”
“Heavy.”
“How heavy?”
“Private guards, controlled access, no public employees listed.”
Elena stood.
“Genevieve mentioned Aurora.”
I turned.
“When?”
“At the motel.”
“What did she say?”
“She said if anything happened to her, the answer was underneath Aurora.”
Prescott and I exchanged looks.
I thought about Genevieve’s letter.
Trust evidence, not loyalty.
I thought about my children fighting for hours.
Then I looked at Franklin.
“Keep them alive.”
He didn’t promise.
He couldn’t.
I turned to Prescott.
“We’re going to Aurora.”
Before we could move, Elena’s prepaid phone vibrated.
One new message appeared.
DON’T GO TO AURORA.
Then another.
YOU ARE ALREADY BEING WATCHED.
A third followed.
And this time, attached to it was a photograph taken less than sixty seconds earlier.
It showed me standing inside the medical apartment.
Beside Elena.
May you like
Through the glass behind us, Jonah and Blythe were visible.
Someone had taken the photograph from inside our supposedly secure building.
