Chapter 9 - THE HEARING
My mother had died twelve years earlier.
Breast cancer.
That was the story I knew.
That was the story on her death certificate.
That was the story I had never questioned.
Now Julian was claiming her name existed inside a fertility fraud investigation decades before I married him.
Lena told me not to believe anything he said without evidence.
Garrison said the same.
But when federal investigators searched the oldest Beacon archives, they found it.
B-17.
Not a specimen number.
Not originally.
A patient designation.
My mother.
Margaret Anne Collins.
Age twenty-nine.
The year?
The year before I was born.
I sat inside Lena’s conference room staring at the copied page.
“Was my mother infertile?”
“We don’t know,” Lena said.
“Did she use Beacon?”
“The clinic operated under another name then.”
“Why did she never tell me?”
Nobody had an answer.
Garrison looked almost sick.
“You knew my mother?”
“No.”
“Did Elise?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I won’t invent answers.”
I wanted to hate him.
Instead, I hated everyone who had died before explaining anything.
The court hearing against Julian began two days later.
It was supposed to concern marital assets.
It turned into something much larger.
Lena established the lockout.
The drained accounts.
The insurance cancellation.
The secret payments to Delphine Medical Consulting.
Then she introduced Julian’s pre-marital fertility diagnosis.
His attorney objected.
The judge allowed limited testimony.
Finally, Lena asked the question every person in the courtroom had been waiting to hear.
“Mr. Mercer, did you know before marrying your wife that you had been diagnosed with severe male-factor infertility?”
Julian stared at me.
“Yes.”
The room erupted in whispers.
My chest hurt.
Not because I had not known.
I did.
But hearing him admit it under oath made six years of my life collapse into one word.
Lena continued.
“Did you tell your wife?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“My father advised against it.”
“Your father died before your marriage.”
“He had advised me earlier.”
“Why?”
Julian glanced toward Eleanor.
His mother stared straight ahead.
Lena followed his eyes.
“Was it because of the Mercer Family Continuation Trust?”
His attorney stood.
“Objection.”
“Overruled.”
Julian hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Did you allow your wife to undergo invasive fertility treatments while knowing doctors were focusing primarily on her?”
“I trusted the clinic.”
“Did you instruct Dr. Halpern to keep your wife focused on ‘her side’?”
Silence.
The email appeared on the courtroom monitor.
Julian’s own words.
His attorney whispered to him.
Julian finally answered.
“Yes.”
I heard someone behind me gasp.
Lena took one step closer.
“Did you intend to claim Chloe Davis’s unborn child as your biological heir?”
Julian’s eyes sharpened.
“I believed the child was mine.”
“Even after receiving information that natural conception was extraordinarily unlikely?”
“I believed Chloe.”
“Did you arrange a paternity test?”
“Yes.”
“And what did it show?”
His attorney objected again.
This time the judge leaned forward.
“Mr. Mercer will answer.”
Julian swallowed.
“That I was excluded.”
The courtroom exploded.
Cameras were banned inside, but I could practically hear the headlines forming outside.
Lena waited.
“When did you receive that result?”
Julian looked at Chloe’s empty seat.
“Before I left my wife.”
The sound that came from me did not feel human.
He had known.
Before he mocked me.
Before he said Chloe’s pregnancy proved I was the problem.
Before he drained our accounts.
He already knew Chloe’s child was not his.
He had staged the entire humiliation.
Lena’s voice turned ice cold.
“Then why did you tell your wife Chloe’s pregnancy proved she was infertile?”
Julian looked directly at me.
“Because I needed her to leave quietly.”
I stood before I realized what I was doing.
Garrison caught my arm.
The judge called for order.
Lena did not stop.
“Why?”
Julian’s face finally cracked.
“Because she was asking questions.”
“What questions?”
“About Beacon.”
I froze.
I remembered.
Months before Julian left, I had requested old treatment records because an insurance statement did not match a procedure date.
I had forgotten.
Julian had not.
Lena turned toward the jury box that was empty because this was not a jury proceeding.
Then back to Julian.
“Your wife was not discarded because she failed to give you a child.”
Julian said nothing.
“You discarded her because she was getting too close to evidence.”
His mother stood.
“Enough!”
Every head turned.
Eleanor Mercer had gone white.
Her attorney grabbed her sleeve.
She pulled away.
“You have no idea what you’re uncovering.”
The judge slammed the gavel.
“Mrs. Mercer, sit down.”
But Eleanor stared at me.
Not at Julian.
Me.
Her lips trembled.
“You should have stayed out of Beacon.”
My blood turned cold.
“Why?”
Garrison moved in front of me.
Eleanor laughed suddenly.
A broken, frightened sound.
“Because your mother didn’t.”
Before anyone could ask another question, a federal agent rushed through the courtroom doors.
He whispered something to the prosecutor.
The prosecutor’s face changed.
The judge demanded an explanation.
The agent looked toward me.
“Chloe Davis has been found.”
I grabbed the railing.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Relief hit first.
Then I saw his expression.
“What happened to the baby?”
The agent did not answer immediately.
May you like
Finally, he said:
“There was no baby with her.”
