Chương 8
Michelle had gone very pale.
I watched the pieces move across her face.
“You told me your father was handling everything.”
Christopher looked at her.
“I thought he was.”
“You told me after Richard died that nothing had changed.”
“Nothing had.”
“You paid the storage bill.”
“I paid Sonoran’s expenses.”
“You signed for the account.”
“I just told you I didn’t read it.”
She stared at him.
Then she laughed.
It was a terrible sound.
“You mocked me for using Andrew.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You called me sick.”
“I was angry.”
“You knew enough to keep paying.”
“I didn’t know what I was paying.”
Evelyn sat down again.
“How much?”
Daniel looked at the papers.
“Storage alone isn’t the problem.”
Christopher closed his eyes.
Daniel continued.
“There are procedure fees.”
Michelle stopped breathing for a second.
“What procedure fees?”
“Release preparation.”
Her arms tightened around Emma.
“No.”
Daniel looked at her.
“Three separate authorizations.”
“No.”
“Michelle.”
She shook her head.
“There should only be one.”
Everyone looked at her.
I felt the room shift before I understood why.
Daniel slowly lowered the page.
“One for the material used to create your embryo?”
“Yes.”
He looked back down.
“Then there are two releases no one here has explained.”
Christopher moved toward the documents.
“When?”
Daniel gave him the dates.
The first was eight months before Richard died.
The second was six weeks after.
Evelyn covered her mouth.
Michelle stared at Christopher.
“Who else used Andrew’s sperm?”
Nobody answered.
Then Priya opened another folder.
“We may have a bigger problem.”
Christopher snapped, “Bigger than what?”
She turned the page toward me.
“This second release was billed through Vextor’s employee medical reimbursement account.”
I leaned closer.
There was a patient identifier instead of a name.
But beneath it was an emergency contact number.
I recognized the last four digits.
Michelle did too.
She looked at me.
I felt cold spread through my chest.
“That’s your old number,” she whispered.
Christopher’s face went blank.
Priya looked between us.
“Victoria?”
I could barely hear my own voice.
“That number belonged to me.”
Evelyn stood.
“What are you saying?”
I looked at the date again.
Six weeks after Richard died.
Seven months before my final failed fertility treatment.
And suddenly I was not thinking about Michelle’s babies anymore.
I was thinking about the embryos Christopher and I had been told never developed far enough to transfer.
I looked at my former husband.
He had stopped arguing.
That frightened me more than anything he could have said.
“Christopher,” I whispered.
“What did you do?”
Christopher looked at me as though any answer he gave would cost him something he had spent years protecting.
“I didn’t do anything to you.”
Daniel’s eyes dropped to the papers.
Priya said, “That is not the same as answering.”
Christopher rounded on her.
“You don’t get to interrogate me in my mother’s house.”
“No one is interrogating you.”
“You just accused me of tampering with fertility records.”
“I asked what happened.”
“You asked it like I’m guilty.”
Priya closed the folder.
“Then give us a better explanation.”
Christopher looked toward the front door.
For one second, I thought he might leave.
Instead he walked to the bar cabinet near the dining room and poured two fingers of whiskey into a glass.
Evelyn stared at him.
“It’s four in the afternoon.”
He drank half of it.
“That’s your concern?”
“No.”
Her voice softened.
“It’s just something your father used to do when he was cornered.”
Christopher’s hand stopped midway back to the glass.
“Please don’t compare me to him right now.”
“Then stop acting like him.”
The cruelty of it shocked even Evelyn.
She pressed her lips together immediately.
Christopher laughed without humor.
“Perfect.”
Michelle shifted both babies closer to her, one balanced against each side now that Evelyn had handed Noah back.
The twins seemed impossibly small against everything being said around them.
I sat because my knees had started trembling.
The patient identifier on the reimbursement record was still visible.
My old number sat beneath it like a fingerprint.
“That clinic had my number because I was a patient there.”
Michelle looked at me.
“You went to Meridian?”
“No.”
“That’s not what Meridian was called publicly.”
Priya turned another page.
“The reimbursement record lists a partner facility.”
I leaned forward.
The name punched a hole through the room.
Pacific Reproductive Associates.
I knew every hallway in that building.
Every beige chair.
Every framed photograph of smiling families.
Every nurse who learned to pronounce my last name.
“That was our clinic.”
Christopher closed his eyes.
I stood again.
“What did Meridian send there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why is my number on the record?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I don’t.”
Daniel lifted a page.
“Chris.”
Christopher looked at him.
“There’s an authorization code tied to your Vextor login.”
The glass lowered.
“What authorization code?”
“For the reimbursement request.”
“I approved expenses constantly.”
“This one required secondary confirmation.”
Christopher said nothing.
Daniel continued.
“Your assistant at the time confirmed the request.”
“Who?”
“Marcy Bell.”
I remembered Marcy.
She had worked for Christopher for almost six years before leaving Vextor unexpectedly.
At the time, Christopher said she wanted to stay home with her children.
Months later, I ran into her at a grocery store.
She had changed aisles when she saw me.
At the time, I assumed she was embarrassed because of my marriage.
Now that small avoidance returned with teeth.
“Call her,” I said.
Christopher shook his head.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because this has gone far enough.”
Michelle stared at him.
“That’s a strange place to draw the line.”
He looked at her.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then tell us.”
“I don’t owe you an explanation.”
Her expression hardened.
“You absolutely do.”
The babies started crying almost together.
The sound shattered the room.
Michelle closed her eyes and whispered something under her breath.
Evelyn moved immediately.
“Give me Emma.”
“No, I’ve got them.”
May you like
“You don’t.”
That would have started a fight at any other moment.
