Chapter 3 - THE TREATMENT THAT WAS MAKING THEM WORSE
The infusion stopped immediately.
Lawson called an outside pediatric oncology team from Northwestern.
Not one doctor.
Five.
He wanted every decision reviewed.
Dr. Yates protested until Prescott escorted him from the medical wing.
No one touched him.
No one needed to.
Lawson had discovered long ago that locked doors frightened guilty men more than raised voices.
Three hours later, Dr. Amelia Hart, a bone-marrow specialist, arrived.
She reviewed the genetic report Elena carried.
Then she studied the twins’ charts.
Her expression changed.
“These children should have been screened for this mutation before their first chemotherapy cycle.”
Lawson felt his heartbeat pounding behind his eyes.
“Would the treatment have been different?”
“Yes.”
“Would they be dying?”
Dr. Hart did not answer quickly enough.
Lawson understood.
Elena sat beside Blythe and quietly brushed a strand of soft regrowing hair from her forehead.
“How bad is it?” Lawson asked.
“The current treatment damaged marrow that was already genetically vulnerable. Their leukemia may still be treatable, but they need a compatible transplant urgently.”
“Ten days?”
Hart looked at him.
“Possibly less.”
Money suddenly meant something again.
Not because it could purchase life.
Because it could purchase speed.
Lawson ordered private laboratories across the country opened overnight.
Every registry.
Every archived sample.
Every specialist.
Hart stopped him.
“Mr. Mercer, there is another problem.”
“What?”
“The twins have an unusual shared marker. Finding unrelated donors for both could take months.”
“Then we don’t have months.”
“No.”
Elena stood.
“That’s why Genevieve hid the second file.”
Lawson turned.
“What second file?”
Elena hesitated.
“I only saw it once.”
“Where?”
“Her apartment before she married you.”
Lawson’s patience snapped.
“You keep giving me pieces.”
“Because pieces are all Genevieve gave me!”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“She was scared, Lawson. Not of leukemia. Of what would happen if certain people learned what she had discovered.”
He stared at her.
“What did she discover?”
Elena lowered her voice.
“The Mercer family genetic archive.”
Lawson said nothing.
His father, Conrad Mercer, had insisted on private blood testing for every member of the family for decades.
Officially, it was for hereditary disease prevention.
Unofficially, Conrad believed information was control.
“What about the archive?”
“Genevieve found a match before Jonah and Blythe were even conceived.”
Lawson’s skin went cold.
“For a donor?”
“For someone whose marrow markers would likely match any child she had with you.”
“Who?”
Elena looked toward the twins.
Then back at Lawson.
“She called that person Insurance.”
Lawson hated the word.
“What was the name?”
“I never saw it.”
Prescott entered carrying a sealed evidence bag.
Inside was Dr. Yates’s phone.
“We found a deleted message.”
“To whom?”
“Unknown prepaid number.”
“What did it say?”
Prescott handed him the screen.
Lawson read five words:
TEN DAYS. THEN BOTH PROBLEMS END.
Beneath it was the reply.
MAKE SURE WARD NEVER REACHES HIM.
Lawson looked at Elena.
May you like
Someone had known she was coming.
And someone had been waiting for his children to die.
