Chapter 4 - The Anatomy of Theft
My hand froze on the brass deadbolt of my office door.
The world shrank down to the sound of Daniel’s measured, shallow breathing against the back of my neck.
Four years ago, I had spent six brutal months pumping my body with synthetic hormones, enduring bruising injections twice a day in our bathroom.
We had failed three intrauterine inseminations before moving to an aggressive round of in-vitro fertilization.
The university reproductive clinic had retrieved fourteen viable mature ova from my ovaries.
Two embryos had failed to implant in my uterine lining, leaving me bedridden with grief for weeks.
The clinic had assured us that the remaining twelve unfertilized eggs were cryopreserved under double-locked vault security.
They were my last fragile reserve of biological hope, preserved in case we ever tried again.
“You stole my eggs?”
My voice wasn't loud; it was a blade sliding from a leather sheath.
Daniel backed away from the door, his hands raised defensively as if he were trying to placate a dangerous animal.
“I didn't steal them, Emily, my mother had an insider at the university bio-bank.”
“She paid the head lab coordinator forty thousand dollars to falsify a spoilage report on your canister.”
“You remember that letter you got three years ago saying the cooling unit had malfunctioned and your samples were non-viable?”
The memory slammed into my mind like a physical blow.
I had wept at the kitchen table holding that cold, corporate notification letter signed by the university director.
I had held Daniel while he comforted me, telling me that we would find another way, that we were enough for each other.
He had held me while knowing his own mother had bribed a technician to wheel my future out the back service door.
“You knew,” I whispered, the bile rising hot in the back of my throat.
“You knew that entire time while I cried in your arms.”
“I found out six months later, Emily!” Daniel pleaded, his voice cracking with a grotesque attempt at sincerity.
“I swear to God on my father's grave, I didn't know about it before it happened!”
“When my mother told me what she had done, it was already finished; the embryos had already been created in a private lab across the border.”
“If I went to the police then, my mother would have died in a federal penitentiary!”
“She is an old woman, Emily, she wouldn't have survived five years behind bars!”
“She should be in prison!” I screamed, the professional composure finally shattering into raw, volcanic rage.
“And you should be in the cell right next to her!”
Daniel lunged toward the desk, grabbing the Vanguard lab documentation and shoving it into his briefcase.
“Listen to me carefully, Emily, because your medical license is on the line just as much as mine!”
“Ashley gave birth under an assumed insurance card registered to our family policy!”
“You just signed the primary delivery certificate as the attending physician!”
“If this unravels into a criminal fraud investigation, the state medical board will suspend your license the second the indictment lands!”
“They will say you were in on it to secure your brother's estate!”
“They will say you delivered your own illegally manufactured baby to claim twelve million dollars!”
I grabbed a heavy crystal paperweight from the corner of my desk and hurled it across the room.
It smashed through the lower panel of the frosted glass door, sending sharp, jagged shards scattering across the floor tiles.
Daniel flinched, jumping back as glass sprayed across his polished leather shoes.
“Get out of my office,” I said, every syllable dripping with deadly venom.
“Emily, think about this logically—”
“Get out before I scream for hospital security and tell them you assaulted me in this room!”
Daniel looked at the shattered glass, then at the manic, unyielding fury burning in my eyes.
He snapped his briefcase shut, tucking it under his arm.
“I’m going to Ashley’s room to make sure she doesn't talk to anyone,” he said, stepping carefully through the debris.
“You have until midnight to decide whether you want to be a twelve-million-dollar family, or an unemployed felon sitting in a holding cell.”
He turned the broken latch and slipped out into the hallway, pulling the damaged door shut behind him.
I sank to the floor, my back sliding down the wooden paneling until my knees touched the cold linoleum.
I sat among the shards of shattered glass, my breath coming in ragged, tearing gasps.
My dead brother’s child was down the hall.
My own stolen biological son was sleeping in an incubator under radiant heat lamps seventy feet away.
And the woman who had carried him was an extortionist hired by my mother-in-law to rob my family’s grave.
I wiped my face with the sleeve of my scrub top, forcing the panic down into a dark, locked chamber of my mind.
Crying would not save my medical license.
Crying would not protect Nathan’s legacy.
And crying certainly would not protect that innocent baby boy from the vipers circling his bassinet.
I stood up, stepping over the glass shards, and walked over to my desk telephone.
I picked up the receiver and dialed a private seven-digit extension that bypassed the hospital operator entirely.
The line rang three times before a gruff, familiar voice answered on the other end.
“Marcus Vance, Criminal Investigations.”
Marcus had been Nathan’s closest friend since their days at the military academy, and he was currently a senior detective with the metro fraud division.
“Marcus,” I said, my voice completely devoid of tears, cold as the winter rain outside.
“I need you to bring an evidence kit and two uniformed officers to room 402 at St. Jude Memorial right now.”
“Emily? What happened? Are you okay?”
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“My husband just tried to buy my brother’s soul for twelve million dollars,” I replied, staring at my reflection in the dark rain-streaked window.
“And I’m about to tear his entire family apart.”
