Chapter 8
“Sophie!”
Her name tore from my throat.
Dr. Vance laughed softly.
“She is unharmed.”
“Let me hear her.”
A rustle.
Then Sophie’s terrified voice.
“Mom?”
“I’m here, baby.”
“I’m in a car.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Can you see anything?”
A hand struck the phone.
Sophie cried out.
Arthur grabbed my shoulder.
“What happened?”
I raised one finger, silencing him.
Vance returned.
“No clever questions.”
“Please,” I said.
The word tasted like blood.
“Don’t hurt her.”
“Then bring Grace to the Austin laboratory.”
“No.”
Arthur stared at me.
Vance’s voice hardened.
“You have two hours.”
“The roads are barely open.”
“Your helicopter can fly now.”
“You planned this.”
“I prepare for every possibility.”
I looked at Marcus.
He was already tracing the call.
“Why Sophie?” I asked.
“Insurance.”
“She is not the match.”
“I know.”
“Then she is useless to you.”
Every person in the room flinched.
I hated saying it.
But I needed Vance to believe I saw Sophie as a poor substitute.
“I can release the stored tissue,” I said.
“You cannot access the vault remotely.”
“I can authorize my board.”
“Your board has suspended your credentials.”
He knew.
The news scandal had forced the board to freeze my access minutes earlier.
Someone inside the company was feeding him updates.
“You need Grace’s biometric authorization,” he continued.
My mind raced.
The research vault used multi-factor security for family-linked samples.
My fingerprint.
A board code.
And the patient’s live palm scan.
Grace had once provided a scan for identity protection.
He needed her physically present.
“You will release Sophie after the vault opens?”
“Yes.”
“You’re lying.”
“I have no use for her.”
Arthur leaned toward the phone.
“Vance.”
The doctor went silent.
“It’s me,” Arthur said.
“I know.”
“You said you were treating me.”
“I was.”
“You drugged me.”
“You were unstable.”
“You stole from my children.”
“I preserved your family’s greatest contribution to medicine.”
Arthur’s face twisted.
“You took my brother.”
“I saved him from poverty and shame.”
“You turned him into a patient.”
“I gave him life.”
“You made him believe our mother rejected him.”
A long pause.
“Eleanor did reject him.”
“She was a child.”
“She was weak.”
Arthur’s eyes moved toward Eleanor.
She stood across the room, trembling.
Arthur said, “You build everything around weakness because it makes people easy to control.”
For the first time, Dr. Vance sounded angry.
“You are alive because of me.”
“No. I almost lost my daughter because of you.”
“You never wanted her.”
Arthur looked at Grace.
Pain crossed his face.
“I was wrong.”
The admission came quietly.
“I was wrong about all of them.”
Vance scoffed.
“Sentiment will not change biology.”
“No,” Arthur said. “But it changes what I’m willing to do.”
He took the phone from my hand.
“Take me instead.”
I stared at him.
Vance laughed.
“You are not compatible enough.”
“You need access to the vault. I still hold Brooks family voting shares. I can force Halston’s board representative to release the legal block.”
“That does not replace Grace’s palm scan.”
“I know how to bypass it.”
He was bluffing.
I could see it.
Vance could not.
“What do you want?” the doctor asked.
“Proof Sophie is alive. Then I come alone.”
“No.”
“Then you get nothing.”
Arthur ended the call.
I slapped him.
The sound cracked through the room.
“How dare you?”
His cheek reddened.
“He wants control. We needed to take it back.”
“You ended the only connection to my daughter.”
“He’ll call again.”
“You don’t know that!”
“I know him.”
“You thought you knew him for years.”
He flinched.
Good.
I wanted him to hurt.
Then my phone rang.
Vance again.
Arthur had been right.
I answered.
A video appeared.
Sophie sat in the back seat of a moving SUV.
Her hands were tied.
Her mouth was free.
A masked driver sat in front.
Dr. Vance was not visible.
“Mom,” she cried.
“I see you.”
The camera turned toward the road.
A highway sign flashed past.
Denver.
Marcus captured the image.
Vance spoke from behind the camera.
“Arthur comes with Grace. Kesha comes with the vault authorization. No police.”
“I need more time.”
“You have ninety minutes.”
The video ended.
Marcus sent the highway image to law enforcement.
Traffic cameras began searching for the SUV.
Detective Chen looked at Arthur.
“What bypass were you talking about?”
“There isn’t one.”
I wanted to strike him again.
He continued.
“But Vance believes I know the old Halston system.”
Chen understood.
“You want him focused on you.”
“He sees me as weak. He’ll underestimate me.”
“He won’t underestimate Kesha,” Vanessa said.
Everyone turned toward her.
She had remained through the entire nightmare.
Her red dress was now covered by a borrowed sweater.
Her makeup had faded.
She looked nothing like the woman who arrived expecting an engagement ring.
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“Robert wants the tissue. Vance wants Grace. Those goals are not identical.”
I studied her.
“Robert said he didn’t help with the kidnapping.”
“He may be telling the truth.”
Arthur shook his head.
“Robert exposed Kesha’s company.”
“To pressure her into releasing a sample, not to abduct a child.”
Vanessa took out her phone.
“I worked on ValeGen’s public relations account three years ago.”
Arthur stared.
“You never told me.”
“You never asked much about my work.”
She ignored him and searched her contacts.
“I met Robert’s chief medical officer, Dr. Miriam Lowe.”
She called.
No answer.
She called again.
A woman finally picked up.
Vanessa put the call on speaker.
“Miriam, this is Vanessa Cole.”
“Vanessa? Do you know what time—”
“Robert has Anika Patel.”
Silence.
Then, “Who told you that?”
“He did.”
“Where are you?”
“At the Miller estate.”
Miriam’s breathing sharpened.
“Listen carefully. Robert is not in control of this.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is he working with Vance?”
“Robert believes Vance is trying to save him. He doesn’t understand what the treatment will require.”
“What does it require?” I asked.
The woman froze.
“Who is that?”
“Kesha Walker.”
A long pause.
Then Miriam said, “A complete marrow transplant would be dangerous for Grace, but not necessarily fatal.”
“Necessarily?”
“Vance’s protocol is different.”
“How?”
“He plans repeated harvesting.”
My stomach turned.
“For how long?”
“Years.”
Arthur cursed.
Miriam continued.
“Robert rejected the protocol when he learned the donor was a child.”
Hope flickered.
“Then why is he pressuring me?”
“He wants the stored tissue tested. He believes a laboratory-grown alternative may be possible.”
That was my company’s specialty.
Regenerative neonatal tissue.
The acquisition offers suddenly made sense.
Robert believed Walker Biotech could create a treatment without Grace.
But Vance did not want an alternative.
He wanted control of the donor.
“Where would Vance take Sophie?” Chen asked.
Miriam hesitated.
“ValeGen has a private surgical suite beneath its Denver research center.”
The sign Sophie passed pointed toward Denver.
Marcus sent the address to police.
Miriam’s voice became urgent.
“But Vance may expect you to find it.”
“He asked us to meet at the Austin laboratory,” I said.
“Then Denver is probably a decoy.”
“Where is Robert?”
“I last saw him in ValeGen’s mobile treatment unit.”
“What is that?”
“An eighteen-wheel medical trailer. It can operate as a surgical facility.”
Marcus looked at the traffic footage.
“We’re searching for an SUV. Sophie may have been transferred.”
“Do you have the truck’s tracking information?” Chen asked.
Miriam said, “Robert disabled it last week.”
“Why?”
“He believed someone inside ValeGen was leaking his location.”
“Vance,” I said.
A new call came through.
Robert.
I answered.
His breathing was labored.
“You spoke to Miriam.”
“Yes.”
“Vance took Anika from me.”
“Where?”
“We were at a safe house outside Denver. His men attacked.”
“Did he take you too?”
“I escaped.”
“Where is Sophie?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find out.”
“I can help, but you must release the sample.”
“You’re still bargaining?”
“I am dying.”
“My daughter may die tonight.”
Silence.
Then he said, “You’re right.”
The surrender surprised me.
“I will give you access to ValeGen security. Every facility. Every vehicle.”
“Why?”
“Because Vance lied to me about Eleanor.”
“What did you learn?”
“Anika found the original maternity file. My mother never signed surrender papers.”
Across the room, Eleanor covered her mouth.
Robert continued.
“Vance forged them.”
“Call her.”
“No.”
“She has mourned you for forty-one years.”
“I cannot do that now.”
“Why?”
His voice broke for the first time.
“Because I don’t know who I am without hating her.”
The honesty silenced me.
“Help me save Sophie,” I said. “Then decide who you want to be.”
He sent Marcus access credentials.
ValeGen’s vehicle database opened.
The mobile surgical trailer appeared offline.
But fuel purchase records showed it had refueled near Colorado Springs three hours earlier.
Not Denver.
Not Austin.
It was traveling south.
Toward Texas.
Marcus traced the likely route.
Then his face changed.
“It isn’t going to your Austin headquarters.”
“Where, then?”
He enlarged the map.
Walker Biotech had three research facilities.
One in Austin.
One in Dallas.
And one small neonatal testing center outside Amarillo.
The Amarillo site was nearly empty for the holiday.
It also contained the backup genetic vault.
A vault linked to Grace.
“He’s going to Amarillo,” I said.
We could reach it by helicopter in less than two hours.
Vance had given us ninety minutes.
He expected us to be late.
Unless he had arranged another aircraft.
Richard contacted the estate pilot.
The helicopter was fueled.
Weather conditions had improved enough for departure.
I turned toward Grace.
She had heard everything.
“No,” she said.
I knelt in front of her.
“You’re not going.”
“He has Sophie because he wants me.”
“We will find another way.”
“What if there isn’t one?”
“You are eight years old. This is not your decision.”
Grace’s chin trembled.
“She would come for me.”
My heart broke.
“I know.”
Arthur crouched beside us.
“Then I’ll go for both of you.”
Grace looked at him.
“You can’t open the vault.”
“No.”
“But Mom can.”
I already knew what I had to do.
I hated it.
Every part of me resisted it.
But Sophie was in a moving surgical facility with a man who had stolen children for decades.
We could not wait.
I stood.
“Marcus, prepare the helicopter.”
Arthur rose too.
“I’m coming.”
“So am I,” Vanessa said.
Arthur stared at her.
“This isn’t your fight.”
She looked at him coldly.
“It became my fight when your lies brought me into this house.”
Detective Chen objected.
Federal agents objected.
I did not care.
Law enforcement would track us from a distance.
We would approach the Amarillo facility while teams searched the highways.
Before leaving, I pulled Leo, Noah, and Grace into my arms.
Eleanor promised to stay with them.
Grace whispered in my ear.
“Bring her back.”
“I will.”
As we boarded the helicopter, Robert sent one final message.
A live location marker appeared.
The mobile surgical trailer had been found.
It was parked inside an abandoned aircraft hangar twelve miles from the Amarillo facility.
Beneath the location was a warning.
Vance has Sophie.
May you like
He also has Anika.
And he has already begun preparing the wrong child for surgery.
