Chapter 8 - THE BROTHER I NEVER KNEW
His name was Nicholas Lindqvist.
Thirty-nine.
Three years older than me.
Christopher’s son from a brief marriage before he met my mother.
I had known Christopher had once been married.
I did not know there was a child.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Nicholas asked me not to.”
“Why?”
“He hated the Lindqvist name.”
Nicholas had left Arizona at twenty-one.
Changed his surname.
Became a wildlife veterinarian in Oregon.
He wanted nothing from Christopher’s wealth.
Nothing from the family.
“How could his genetic material end up at my fertility clinic?”
Christopher looked horrified.
“I don’t know.”
Nina immediately clarified something critical.
Even if Nicholas’s sample had been used, we could not assume Toby was his son without proper testing.
The clinic code might mean something else.
Good.
Facts first.
But Chad clearly believed the paternity issue was real.
Why?
Because someone had told him.
My mother?
Lewis Vale?
We contacted Nicholas.
Christopher did not call.
I did.
He answered after the fourth ring.
“Genevieve.”
He knew my name.
“You know who I am?”
“Of course.”
That hurt strangely.
“Did you know I existed?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know I didn’t know about you?”
Silence.
“Yes.”
Families loved secrets more than oxygen.
I explained Toby.
The clinic.
The code.
Nicholas went quiet.
Then:
“I donated genetic material once.”
My stomach tightened.
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
Exactly.
“Why?”
He had been participating in a medical research program related to hereditary cardiac conditions in the Lindqvist family.
Samples were stored at a research laboratory.
The lab shared a parent company with Suncrest Fertility.
That did not mean deliberate use.
But it created opportunity.
Nicholas agreed immediately to DNA testing.
So did I.
So did Toby through court-approved procedures.
We waited twenty-four brutal hours.
The result arrived at 4:18 p.m.
Nicholas was not Toby’s father.
Relief hit first.
Then confusion.
The report showed a close biological relationship.
Likely:
Maternal uncle.
That made sense.
Nicholas was my half brother.
The earlier paternity reports had been deliberately misinterpreted or falsified.
Chad wasn’t excluded because Nicholas was the father.
The reports were fake.
Why create fake reports at all?
Leverage.
Fear.
Confusion.
Then proper testing confirmed something else.
Chad was Toby’s biological father after all.
I laughed and cried at the same time.
One lie gone.
But Nina was not smiling.
“What?”
She turned the legitimate DNA report.
“Toby’s sample triggered a kinship flag.”
“With who?”
“A second person in the database.”
I felt cold again.
“Who?”
Nina looked toward Christopher.
“Frank Vale.”
My supposedly dead uncle.
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The database suggested Frank was Toby’s close maternal relative.
Which meant Frank was alive.
