Chapter 6 - THE BLOOD TEST
The forged birth certificate made no sense until Rebecca found the court petition.
It had been saved on Elena’s flash drive.
Petition for Emergency Determination of Parentage.
Arthur read it twice.
Then a third time.
Elena intended to claim she had secretly given birth to Lucas before Arthur met her and that Rachel had unlawfully assumed maternal identity through a falsified hospital registration.
It was insane.
It was also carefully supported.
Photographs.
Medical records.
Witness declarations.
DNA laboratory paperwork.
Arthur dropped the pages.
“This would never survive court.”
Rebecca’s expression was grim.
“It doesn’t have to survive forever.”
“What?”
“It only has to create enough uncertainty for a judge to freeze the trust.”
Maria understood first.
“And if the trust is frozen…”
“Elena petitions for control while parentage is litigated.”
Arthur paced.
“But there’s no DNA evidence.”
Rebecca silently placed a report on the desk.
Arthur stopped.
It showed a 99.98 percent probability that Elena Vance was Lucas’s biological mother.
Arthur laughed once.
It sounded almost broken.
“No.”
Maria looked at the page.
“Could it be fake?”
“Absolutely,” Rebecca said. “But the lab is real.”
Arthur stared at her.
“How?”
“Someone submitted samples.”
“From who?”
“That’s what we need to learn.”
Lucas appeared in the study doorway.
“Dad?”
Everyone stopped.
Arthur immediately covered the report.
“Hey.”
Lucas held up his stuffed dinosaur.
“Maria said I could have hot chocolate.”
“She did?”
Maria gave him an apologetic smile.
“Only a little.”
Lucas walked toward Arthur.
“Are you still mad?”
Arthur pulled him close.
“Not at you.”
Lucas looked at Rebecca.
“Are you police?”
Rebecca smiled faintly.
“No.”
“You look like police.”
“I used to be.”
“That counts.”
For the first time all day, Arthur almost smiled.
Then Lucas rubbed his arm.
Arthur noticed a small round bruise near his elbow.
“What happened there?”
Lucas looked down.
“I don’t know.”
Maria’s face tightened.
“When did you get that?”
“Elena took me to a doctor.”
Arthur went still.
“What doctor?”
“Last week.”
“She told me you had a school physical,” Maria said.
Lucas shook his head.
“No. Elena said it was a secret checkup.”
Arthur crouched.
“What did they do?”
“They took blood.”
Maria covered her mouth.
Rebecca’s eyes hardened.
“When?”
“Tuesday.”
“Did Elena give blood too?”
Lucas nodded.
Arthur stood so quickly the chair behind him tipped over.
“She used my son for a fraudulent DNA test.”
Rebecca was already typing.
“Name of the clinic?”
Lucas thought.
“It had a blue fish on the wall.”
Maria remembered.
“I know it. Harbor Pediatric Diagnostics.”
Rebecca made a call.
Ten minutes later, she had confirmation that Lucas had been brought there under an alias.
The blood sample had later been transferred to the same genetic laboratory listed on Elena’s report.
Arthur gripped the desk.
“But her DNA won’t match him.”
“No,” Rebecca said. “Which means someone swapped one of the samples.”
“Whose?”
Rebecca looked at the report.
“To make Elena appear biologically related, they needed DNA from a woman who actually shares a maternal relationship with Lucas.”
Arthur stopped breathing.
There was only one obvious candidate.
Rachel.
But Rachel had been dead for five years.
“How do you get Rachel’s DNA now?” Maria asked.
Arthur slowly looked toward the fireplace.
Above it hung a silver frame containing one of Rachel’s old hairbrushes.
Lucas had kept it after her death.
Arthur had once found him holding it because he said it still smelled like his mother.
The brush was gone.
Arthur stared at the empty frame.
Then Lucas spoke.
“Elena took it.”
“When?”
“A long time ago.”
“How long?”
Lucas shrugged.
“Maybe Christmas.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
Rebecca checked her phone.
“I’ve got another problem.”
“What?”
“My team lost Elena’s car forty minutes ago.”
Arthur looked up.
“Where?”
“Near LaGuardia.”
“You think she left New York?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No.”
She turned the phone toward him.
A traffic camera showed Elena climbing into a black SUV.
The man opening the door for her was Daniel Mercer.
May you like
And sitting in the back seat beside him was Samuel Price.
The trustee.
