Chapter 3 - My Husband’s First Lie
For one irrational second, I believed my father was alive.
The same height.
Same silver hair.
Same slight limp.
Then the man turned.
Not my father.
His brother.
Uncle Thomas.
I hadn't seen him since my mother's funeral.
That alone was strange.
What happened next was worse.
Daniel whispered, “He knows.”
I turned.
“You've spoken to him?”
Daniel didn't answer quickly enough.
My uncle knocked again.
I opened the door.
Thomas looked older than I remembered.
“Claire.”
“What are you doing here?”
His eyes moved past me to Daniel.
Then Emily.
His face hardened.
“So Ruth's daughter found you.”
Emily stepped forward.
“You knew my mother?”
Thomas entered without being invited.
“Lock the door.”
Nobody moved.
“Now.”
Daniel locked it.
Thomas looked at my stomach.
For the briefest second, sadness crossed his face.
Then he saw the brown envelope.
“You opened it.”
“Yes.”
“You shouldn't have.”
“That's becoming a popular opinion.”
He sat.
I remained standing.
“Tell me about the baby.”
Thomas looked at Daniel.
“Has he told you?”
“Told me what?”
Silence.
I turned slowly toward my husband.
“Daniel.”
He rubbed his jaw.
“I knew your mother had another pregnancy.”
My knees almost gave out.
“What?”
“I didn't know details.”
“You knew?”
“Only for three weeks.”
“You told me you were investigating Emily's claims.”
“I was.”
“While already knowing my mother had another baby?”
Thomas interrupted.
“Daniel came to me.”
I stared at him.
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
My marriage was being dismantled in units of time.
Three weeks.
Seventeen years.
Four years.
Every number contained another lie.
Thomas explained.
Seventeen years earlier, my mother had become pregnant unexpectedly.
My father was not the father.
That sentence alone could have occupied an entire day.
But there was more.
She disappeared for several months under the explanation that she was caring for a sick relative.
I had been sixteen.
I remembered.
I remembered being angry because she missed my school play.
I remembered my father refusing to discuss it.
I remembered thinking adults were simply complicated.
“She gave birth?” I asked.
Thomas nodded.
“To a girl.”
“What happened to her?”
“I was told she died.”
Emily shook her head.
“My mother's video says she survived.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“Who was the father?”
Thomas looked toward the window.
“That's where this becomes dangerous.”
I almost screamed.
“Dangerous? Someone photographed me outside my doctor's office!”
Thomas looked sharply at Daniel.
“You showed her?”
“She found everything.”
“Everything?” I said. “Interesting word.”
Thomas sighed.
“The father was a man named Richard Vale.”
The name meant something.
I had seen it in business pages.
Vale Medical Systems.
Hospitals.
Pharmaceutical research.
Diagnostic laboratories.
The Vale family was old money wrapped in modern medicine.
“Why would my mother be involved with him?”
“She worked for him.”
“As what?”
“A research coordinator.”
I frowned.
My mother had always told me she'd worked in hospital administration before becoming a school counselor.
Another lie.
“What happened?”
“Richard was married. Your mother became pregnant. There were complications.”
“What complications?”
Thomas hesitated.
Emily suddenly spoke.
“My mother was a nurse at Vale Memorial.”
Thomas nodded.
“She helped your mother through the delivery.”
“And the baby?”
Thomas looked at me.
“Was born with a rare genetic marker.”
The room went silent.
My hand covered my stomach again.
“What marker?”
“I don't know.”
“Then why does somebody care about my baby?”
Thomas's eyes filled with something I did not want to recognize.
“Because you may carry it too.”
Daniel stood beside me.
I moved away.
Not because I thought he had caused any of this.
Because I could no longer tell where his protection ended and his deception began.
“Why didn't my mother tell me?”
“Because Richard Vale wanted the child.”
“His daughter?”
“Not as a daughter.”
The words chilled me.
“What does that mean?”
Thomas looked at Emily.
“Ruth knew more.”
“My mother spent the last years of her life terrified,” Emily said. “She moved six times.”
Thomas nodded.
“Because she helped your mother get the baby out.”
My heart stopped.
“Out where?”
“I don't know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No. I expect you to believe your mother made sure nobody knew.”
I looked at the hospital bracelet.
BABY GIRL BENNETT.
Somewhere, perhaps, I had a sister.
A seventeen-year-old girl.
Alive.
And somebody believed my unborn daughter was connected to her.
Thomas stood.
“You need to leave this house.”
“Why?”
“Because if they know Emily came here, they'll assume she brought Ruth's evidence.”
“She did.”
His face changed.
“What evidence?”
“The flash drive.”
Thomas looked genuinely terrified.
“Where is it?”
I pointed toward the laptop.
He crossed the room and pulled it out.
“Hey!”
“You cannot keep this here.”
“Give it back.”
“Claire, listen to me. Richard Vale died eight years ago. But the people who protected what he was doing did not disappear.”
“What was he doing?”
Thomas stared at the drive.
“Human trials.”
Emily whispered, “On babies?”
Thomas did not answer.
That was answer enough.
Daniel swore under his breath.
I felt sick.
My daughter kicked.
Hard.
I pressed both hands against my stomach.
Daniel instinctively moved toward me.
This time I let him.
Only for a second.
Then his phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
Thomas saw the caller.
“Don't answer.”
“Who is it?” I asked.
Daniel declined the call.
I took his phone.
The contact read M. VALE.
I looked up.
“Who is M. Vale?”
Daniel's face went still.
“Claire.”
“No. No more ‘Claire.’ No more protecting me. Who is M. Vale?”
“Margaret Vale.”
Richard Vale's widow.
My husband's phone rang again.
Same name.
I answered it myself.
A woman's voice said, “Daniel, I warned you not to let your wife meet Emily.”
I stared at him.
Margaret continued.
“Bring Claire to me before Thomas tells her what her husband did.”
The line went dead.
I lowered the phone.
Daniel had gone completely pale.
“What did you do?”
He opened his mouth.
Then Thomas said the words that changed everything.
“Ask him where he worked before you met him.”
I looked at my husband.
Daniel said nothing.
Thomas reached into his coat and placed an old employee identification card on the table.
Daniel's photograph was on it.
So was the logo of Vale Medical Systems.
And beneath his name were the words:
GENETIC RESEARCH DIVISION.
I looked at the man I had married.
“You didn't meet me by accident, did you?”
May you like
Daniel's silence answered first.
Then someone upstairs screamed...
