Chapter 7 - THE NORTHBRIDGE ENVELOPE
Luke argued that the genetic tests violated medical privacy and could disrupt established parent-child bonds.
The same man who opened ankle bands now claimed testing might harm us.
The judge denied his motion.
Final results required several more days because the lab repeated every sample under independent observation.
Northbridge produced partial records.
Its attorneys said two archive folders had been corrupted during a server migration.
Those folders belonged to Rebecca and me.
Rachel requested the physical embryology logs.
The clinic said they were stored off-site.
The storage company reported that Northbridge retrieved them one week before our deliveries.
No one could explain where they went afterward.
Eli began therapy with Dr. Melissa Grant.
He slept on a mattress outside my room because he feared someone would move June while we slept.
One night, I woke and found him sitting beside the bassinet holding a toy flashlight.
“You need rest.”
“So do you.”
“I’m the adult.”
“Dad was an adult.”
The sentence stopped me.
I moved his mattress into my room.
Safety did not need to become his job.
Rebecca and I developed a routine.
We fed the babies in separate rooms but left the connecting door open. We recorded every band number, medication, and pediatric visit.
We trusted nurses.
We still watched their hands.
A Northbridge courier arrived with a sealed envelope addressed to me.
Rachel opened it in her office.
Inside was a settlement agreement dated four months before June’s birth.
It offered Luke and me 1.8 million dollars in exchange for releasing Northbridge from claims involving “specimen identification irregularities.”
My signature appeared at the bottom.
It was not mine.
Luke’s signature was genuine.
A payment schedule listed the first installment as already issued to Mercer Family Holdings.
I had never heard of the company.
Rachel traced it to a bank account controlled by Luke.
Three hundred thousand dollars had been deposited.
Most had paid our mortgage, hospital expenses, and a private loan I did not know existed.
The rest remained in cash reserves.
Luke had accepted money connected to an identification problem months before he moved the babies.
The agreement did not say what had been misidentified.
Northbridge’s lawyers claimed it concerned a laboratory-labeling issue with no effect on pregnancy.
Then Detective Cole found Susan Bell.
She was staying in a motel two counties away under her maiden name.
She agreed to speak only after receiving counsel.
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Her first statement was not about Luke.
“Dr. Holloway told us there would never be two live births.”
