Chapter 5 - THE DNA REPORT DESIGNED TO BREAK US
Olivia turned pale when she saw the report.
“I have never been with him.”
“I know.”
She searched my face.
“How can you know?”
“Because Linda’s document is already part of a fraud scheme.”
Hale sent the report for forensic examination.
The laboratory logo belonged to a legitimate company.
The case number did not.
The signatures were copied from unrelated tests.
But one section contained real genetic markers.
Mason’s.
Someone had collected his DNA without permission.
Olivia remembered Linda insisting on taking him to a pediatric appointment three months earlier.
No clinic visit appeared in our insurance records.
Instead, Linda brought Mason to Ross.
He collected a cheek swab and used the sample to construct the false report.
The purpose was not only emotional damage.
If I disputed paternity, Linda could argue that Olivia deceived me and was therefore unfit.
Ross could then claim biological rights or create legal confusion while Linda pursued guardianship.
“Why list himself?” I asked.
Miriam had an answer.
Ross was Samuel Carter’s unrecognized son.
My grandfather had an affair before marrying my grandmother.
Calvin was born from that relationship.
Samuel provided money privately but never acknowledged him publicly.
Ross grew up believing the Carter family denied him his rightful inheritance.
Linda met him in college.
Their resentment connected them.
She believed Samuel cheated her.
Ross believed he erased him.
Together, they spent decades trying to seize the company.
If Ross became legally recognized as Mason’s father through fraudulent evidence, he might establish a family connection to the trust.
The plan was absurd emotionally.
Legally, even a weak claim could freeze assets for years.
That delay would allow them to move money.
Then Olivia told me something she had hidden.
“Your mother asked me to sign adoption papers after Mason was born.”
“What?”
“She said they were hospital forms.”
“Did you sign?”
“I stopped when I saw her name.”
Linda was listed as intended adoptive parent.
Olivia confronted her.
Linda laughed and claimed the lawyer made an error.
Afterward, she began taking Olivia’s phone more often.
“She said you knew.”
“I didn’t.”
“I thought maybe you wanted her to help legally because of your travel.”
We had both been manipulated through trust.
I apologized.
Not for Linda’s actions.
For leaving every household responsibility in her hands without independent checks.
“I should have listened more carefully.”
Olivia squeezed my fingers.
“I should have told you.”
“We both should have been able to speak without fear.”
DNA testing confirmed I was Mason’s biological father.
Ross’s claim collapsed.
But investigators discovered his genetic profile did match another child in the database.
A nine-year-old girl named Lily Ross.
Her mother had disappeared six years earlier after challenging a guardianship order prepared by Calvin.
The child now lived with Linda’s sister, Aunt Diane.
Linda’s scheme may have already succeeded once.
Police located Lily.
She appeared physically safe but terrified of adults asking questions.
Diane claimed the girl’s mother abandoned her.
Records showed the mother, Hannah Blake, filed multiple complaints against Ross and Linda before disappearing.
Her car was found near a lake.
No body.
The pattern resembled my father’s death.
A woman threatened the scheme.
Then vanished.
Lily told a child specialist that her mother sometimes called through a hidden tablet.
The calls stopped eight months earlier.
Police recovered the device.
The final message from Hannah read:
Linda is planning something involving a baby named Mason. Tell Ethan his father’s bridge accident was not the first.
Beneath the message was a photograph of another vehicle.
My grandfather Samuel’s car.
Taken two weeks before his death.
I had been told he died from a stroke at home.
The photograph showed Ross tampering beneath the hood.
My grandfather may have been murdered too.
May you like
Linda had not moved into our house after Samuel died to help with Mason.
She moved in because she believed Samuel had left evidence with me.
