Chapter 7 - THE DNA TEST I NEVER ORDERED
My first reaction was denial.
Not because I had cheated.
I hadn’t.
Chad was the only man I had been with during the year Toby was conceived.
“This is fake.”
Nina agreed.
“Probably.”
Christopher said nothing.
“What?”
He looked uncomfortable.
“There’s a second report.”
Different laboratory.
Different date.
Same result.
Excluded.
My stomach dropped.
“That’s impossible.”
Then I remembered fertility treatment.
Not IVF exactly.
Chad and I had struggled for almost two years.
We used intrauterine insemination at a private clinic.
Chad provided samples.
I underwent treatment.
Toby was conceived during the third cycle.
“What clinic?”
Christopher asked.
“Suncrest Fertility.”
Nina immediately began searching.
The clinic had closed four years earlier after ownership changes.
One former director’s name made Christopher stand.
Dr. Lewis Vale.
My mother’s cousin.
I felt physically ill.
No.
Nina obtained records through emergency legal channels.
Some were missing.
But one surviving lab worksheet listed donor material under an anonymous code.
Not Chad’s patient number.
My entire body went cold.
“Did Mom know?”
Nobody answered.
That meant probably.
I thought of every time Marion said Toby had “Vale eyes.”
Every time she insisted he looked like our side.
I assumed grandmother pride.
What if she knew something I didn’t?
Chad’s cloud files included messages with Brenda.
One read:
Once Genevieve is convicted, Toby becomes leverage.
Brenda:
What if she asks for new DNA?
Chad:
Doesn’t matter. Marion controls the clinic records.
I wanted to break something.
Instead I wrote the message down.
Evidence.
Not rage.
“What was Chad planning to do with paternity?”
Nina answered:
“Probably threaten to expose it during custody litigation while presenting himself as the only father Toby knows.”
That part was true.
Biology or not, Chad had raised Toby.
And had now used him as leverage.
Then investigators located the fertility clinic’s former embryology technician.
She remembered my case.
Not details.
But she remembered an unusual instruction.
The sample substitution had been authorized by the clinic director personally.
“Whose sample?” I asked.
She didn’t know.
Only a code.
LV-117.
Lewis Vale?
Maybe.
Then Christopher quietly said:
“I know that code.”
Everyone looked at him.
“It wasn’t a patient code.”
“What was it?”
His voice lowered.
“Lindqvist Venture 117.”
One of his old internal project numbers.
“That makes no sense.”
“It does if the sample came from someone employed by me.”
My heart hammered.
“Who?”
May you like
Christopher looked sick.
“Your half brother.”
