Chapter 9 - THE DIAGNOSIS HIS FATHER HID
Grant’s genetic test took twelve days.
They were the longest twelve days of his life.
Not mine.
I refused to let his fear pull me back into wife mode.
I cared.
That was different.
He met with a genetic counselor.
Elizabeth was offered testing only if and when she wanted it later, given her age and medical guidance.
Savannah’s pregnancy made everything messier.
Then the result came.
Grant did not carry the Huntington’s mutation.
Relief nearly dropped him to his knees.
But something did not make sense.
If William had Huntington’s, why had no one known?
Rebecca reopened medical records.
The answer was ugly.
William did not have Huntington’s disease.
The file had been falsified.
By whom?
Diane Cole.
Savannah’s mother.
Her old nursing credentials appeared on the original report.
Why create a fake hereditary diagnosis?
Money.
An insurance policy.
William had a massive life policy that paid an enhanced benefit if death occurred after diagnosis with certain degenerative diseases.
The beneficiary?
Cross Family Charitable Trust.
But Diane had secretly redirected part of the policy through a consulting company.
Savannah knew about it.
Maybe not all.
Enough.
“Her mother was running insurance fraud,” I said.
Grant nodded.
“And Savannah is using the fake diagnosis now.”
“For what?”
Rebecca answered.
“To justify private genetic testing on the fetus and access the old medical file.”
“Why?”
“To prove Diane’s records were fraudulent before investigators find them first.”
Savannah was cleaning her mother’s past.
Grant closed his eyes.
“And using my baby.”
No one corrected him.
Not yet.
But Rebecca’s expression changed.
“What?”
“There’s something else.”
The prenatal records included a blood-type incompatibility.
Grant’s blood type made the reported fetal markers unlikely.
Not impossible.
Unlikely enough for further testing.
Grant looked at me.
“No.”
I said nothing.
Paternity testing was arranged legally.
Savannah fought it.
That told us something.
The result told us everything.
Grant was not the father.
He stared at the report.
Then laughed.
A terrible, empty sound.
“Whose?”
Savannah refused to say.
Until investigators threatened subpoena.
Then she named him.
Grant’s cousin.
Daniel Cross.
Chief financial officer of Cross Industries.
Grant’s closest business adviser.
The man who had helped Grant hide money from the company account.
The man who had told him the trust was “manageable.”
Daniel had been advising both Grant and Savannah.
Against me.
Against each other.
For himself.
May you like
And suddenly October eighteenth made even more sense.
If Grant lost control of the company, Daniel was positioned to take over.
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