Chapter 5 - Arthur Had Started Investigating
Daniel did not shout.
He sat.
That was worse.
His knees seemed to stop working, and he lowered himself into Arthur’s chair like someone had removed half the bones from his body.
Lauren stayed near the door.
Evelyn stood by the fireplace.
I watched them all.
Ten years earlier, I had been the one surrounded by people waiting for me to collapse.
I didn’t enjoy the symmetry.
Thomas asked Lauren to repeat herself.
She shook her head.
“I need a lawyer.”
“That’s your right.”
“I’m done talking.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You lied to me.”
She flinched.
Then hardened.
“You wanted to believe me.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Why? Because it’s true?”
He stood.
Thomas stepped between them.
“Enough.”
Lauren left.
No one stopped her.
Evelyn moved to follow.
Daniel said, “You stay.”
She turned.
“I am not one of your employees.”
“No. You’re my mother.”
His voice broke.
“And apparently that was enough access to ruin my life.”
Evelyn stared.
Then sat.
Thomas opened Arthur’s investigation file.
“Arthur came to me six months ago because he found the Lauren payment.”
I looked at him.
“He had no idea I had children.”
“No.”
“Then why revisit me?”
“Because the payment made no sense.”
Thomas showed us Arthur’s note.
WHY WAS LAUREN PAID BEFORE CLAIRE WAS ACCUSED?
Underneath:
IF CLAIRE LIED, WHY DID WE PAY FOR THE LIE FIRST?
My throat tightened.
Arthur had seen the shape.
Too late.
But he saw it.
Thomas continued.
“He hired Dana Brooks to trace Ashford Consulting.”
Dana displayed a network of accounts.
Ashford existed on paper.
No office.
No employees beyond a registered agent.
Thirteen years of invoices to Prescott Logistics.
Strategy services.
Risk consultation.
Market intelligence.
No work product attached.
Daniel frowned.
“How much?”
Dana said, “We’re still totaling.”
Evelyn crossed one leg over the other.
“Large companies use outside consultants.”
“Not usually ones that pay a future daughter-in-law to fabricate adultery.”
Her eyes sharpened.
Dana opened another file.
Payment from Ashford to Knox Investigations.
Payment from Ashford to Lauren.
Then one to a medical services contractor linked to the fertility clinic.
My stomach dropped.
Name:
Crane Administrative Solutions.
Daniel looked at me.
“Clinic.”
Thomas nodded.
“Arthur was trying to locate the employee behind it.”
I gripped the table.
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
Dr. Melissa Crane.
Former senior administrator at the fertility clinic.
Still alive.
Living outside Charleston.
Thomas had spoken with her once before Arthur died.
She refused a recorded interview.
But Arthur left instructions to contact her again if Claire ever appeared.
My pulse kicked.
“He planned for this.”
Thomas looked at me.
“He hoped.”
Evelyn stood.
“This has become grotesque.”
Daniel turned.
“Sit down.”
She stared.
He did not blink.
She sat.
That might have been the first direct order he had ever given her in his adult life.
Thomas called Melissa.
No answer.
Again.
Voicemail.
Dana said she would send an investigator.
I shook my head.
“I’ll go.”
Daniel stood.
“So will I.”
“No.”
His face tightened.
“Claire.”
“No.”
“She altered records about my children.”
“Our children biologically. My children in every practical sense.”
He flinched.
I continued.
“You do not get to walk into every room now because DNA shocked you.”
He looked down.
Then nodded.
“Okay.”
That surprised me.
I went with Thomas and Dana.
Renee stayed with the kids.
Two hours later we stood outside a small house near Summerville.
Melissa Crane opened the door before we knocked.
She had been watching through a camera.
Her face went pale when she saw me.
“Claire Bennett.”
“Yes.”
She gripped the door.
“I knew this day would come.”
My pulse hammered.
“Did you alter my report?”
She shook her head quickly.
“No.”
“Did you know it was altered?”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Thomas said, “Who did it?”
She looked behind us.
“Come inside.”
Her dining table held a fireproof document box.
She opened it.
Old backups.
Clinic audit logs.
Payment records.
She said, “I kept these because I was scared.”
“Of Evelyn?”
She looked at me.
“I never met Evelyn Prescott.”
That surprised me.
“Then who?”
“Clinic administrator named Paula Wynn.”
Melissa pulled an audit.
My real patient number.
CB-DP-88314.
The report Daniel received referenced another patient entirely.
CR-44721.
Paula Wynn’s login had copied the exclusion result and replaced the names.
Daniel’s paternity had never been tested against my pregnancy.
The old report was pure fabrication.
Thomas asked, “Payment?”
Melissa opened bank records.
Three days after the file change, Paula received $40,000 from Ashford Consulting.
My mouth went dry.
There it was.
Money touching medicine.
Melissa said, “Paula disappeared after the clinic was sold.”
“Dead?”
“No idea.”
Then her face changed.
“There’s something else.”
She removed another audit sheet.
Daniel Prescott.
Electronic request.
DESTROY REMAINING GENETIC SAMPLES AND PARTNER LINKAGE MATERIALS.
I stared.
Date:
Three days after he threw me out.
My hands turned cold.
“Daniel signed this?”
Melissa nodded.
“He almost erased the only material that could have proved the truth.”
Melissa also had one surviving voicemail transcript from Arthur.
Not audio.
A receptionist had typed it into the clinic system six months before his death.
ARTHUR PRESCOTT REQUESTS CONFIRMATION WHETHER 2007 PARTNER EXCLUSION REPORT WAS AUTHENTIC. STATES FAMILY MATTER MAY HAVE BEEN FRAUDULENT.
My hands went cold.
Arthur had called the clinic.
He had tried to verify what happened.
Melissa nodded.
“I returned the call.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That the number did not match Claire’s case.”
Daniel stopped breathing.
“When?”
“Six months ago.”
Arthur had known enough to suspect me innocent before he died.
That explained the Christmas card.
Maybe more.
“Did he ask where I was?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“I didn’t know.”
Thomas looked at me.
“Arthur hired a locator after that call.”
“Did he find me?”
“No confirmed result before his death.”
I stared at the destruction order in Daniel’s name.
Arthur had spent his final months trying to reconstruct evidence his son had almost erased in anger.
May you like
The irony was too clean to be funny.
CUT.
