Chapter 22 - THE NIGHT NORTHBRIDGE BURNED
Firefighters contained the blaze to one archive room.
The sprinkler system saved most physical files.
The fire began inside a locked cabinet containing transfer worksheets and tank-maintenance records.
Investigators found an incendiary device made from ordinary office materials.
Dr. Holloway was under monitoring.
Andrew and Susan were in custody.
The clinic’s former facilities manager, Thomas Reed, disappeared after using his badge near the archive.
He was arrested two days later.
Thomas admitted Dr. Holloway paid him before her license suspension to “protect patient privacy if authorities overreached.”
She never explicitly wrote burn records.
She transferred money, supplied the cabinet number, and told him the files could destroy thousands of families.
A jury could infer intent.
Her defense called it misunderstanding.
The fire added obstruction charges.
At Dr. Holloway’s trial, prosecutors separated the initial accident from everything that followed.
The storage alarm.
The relocation.
The labeling failure.
Those events could have been negligence.
Then came the altered logs.
The continued transfers.
The private genetic testing.
The settlement.
The hospital plan.
The database changes.
The health records used to manage mothers rather than care for them.
Those were choices.
Naomi testified that Dr. Holloway’s first concern after discovering the cross was not the babies.
“She asked how many lawsuits the clinic could survive.”
Dr. Holloway testified.
She said she had protected viable pregnancies from panic.
She accused Luke of turning a planned legal disclosure into a criminal switch.
The conference recording showed she participated in both discussions.
She claimed the postpartum plan was merely hypothetical.
Susan’s badge, the silenced alarms, and the settlement installments made it real.
Dr. Holloway was convicted of conspiracy, falsifying medical records, unlawful disclosure, obstruction, fraud, and conduct facilitating attempted custodial interference.
The jury acquitted her of one count tied directly to Luke’s physical movement of June because the statute required proof she directed that specific act.
Accuracy mattered even when guilt was extensive.
Her medical license was revoked permanently.
Northbridge entered receivership and later reorganization under a new name. Stored embryos were transferred to independently audited facilities. Patients received court-funded testing and counseling.
Civil settlements could not restore certainty to every family.
Some chose testing.
Some chose not to.
Both decisions carried risk.
Our civil case produced compensation for June and Ava through separate protected trusts.
The money belonged to the girls.
Not to me.
Not to Rebecca.
Not to Luke.
The court required independent trustees and medical funds.
Then the parentage judge ordered final mediation.
Criminal responsibility had been decided.
The babies were nine months old.
They crawled toward the women who had raised them.
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The court could issue a ruling.
The judge wanted to know whether we could choose something less violent than another forced transfer.
