Chapter 2 - The Missing File
Rachel grabbed Ethan's keys before he could reach them.
"We're not driving to your mother's house at ten at night with Noah asleep down the hall. We get the records first."
Ethan held out his hand. "Give me the keys."
"You go there furious, she'll control the conversation. She always does."
His fingers curled. "You think this is the night to lecture me about my mother?"
"I think this is the night someone is feeding us information one piece at a time. That means they want a reaction."
His phone buzzed again.
Both of them froze.
Spam notification.
Ethan exhaled through his nose and turned away.
Rachel put the keys in her pocket.
At 7:58 the next morning, she was already dialing Brighton's records office.
Ethan stood at the kitchen counter, untouched coffee in front of him. Noah was at school because neither of them could bear the idea of explaining anything before they knew what was true.
"Medical records," a woman answered.
Rachel gave her name, date of birth, treatment dates, old address, every identifier she remembered.
The woman typed for nearly a minute.
"That's strange."
Ethan looked up.
Rachel pressed the phone tighter to her ear. "What is?"
"Your billing history is here, but the treatment chart isn't linked. Let me check the archive index."
Music started.
Ethan paced to the refrigerator, opened it, stared inside, closed it without taking anything.
Rachel's phone vibrated with an incoming email.
SUBJECT: YOUR MEDICAL RECORDS REQUEST
She opened it.
The body contained a case number and a line stating some archival materials had been affected by a storage-facility flood three years earlier.
"Flood," she said.
Ethan stopped moving.
The records clerk came back. "Mrs. Mercer? I found a legacy note. Unfortunately, it looks like your complete paper chart may have been among the records destroyed in the Westlake archive incident."
Rachel's palm flattened against the table. "Convenient."
The clerk paused. "I'm sorry?"
"Nothing. You said billing survived."
"Yes. Digital billing entries."
"Read them to me."
"I can't release details verbally without a verification form."
"You read C-17 last night."
"That would have been after-hours triage."
Rachel heard a click on the line.
The clerk's voice dropped. "Actually, I can tell you the category. There's a standard IVF cycle, laboratory handling, storage, and a non-routine specimen processing charge."
Ethan moved closer.
"Non-routine specimen," Rachel repeated. "Whose specimen?"
"I don't have a name. Just the code C-17."
"What does C mean?"
Another pause.
"I don't know."
Too fast.
Rachel sat straighter. "You do know."
"Mrs. Mercer, I can submit this for compliance review."
"What does C mean?"
Silence.
Then: "I need to transfer you."
The call dropped.
Rachel dialed back immediately.
Busy signal.
Ethan rubbed both hands over his face. "This is insane."
"No. Someone at that clinic is scared."
"Or they think you're about to sue them."
"Maybe both."
Rachel opened an old email account she hadn't used in years and searched Brighton.
Hundreds of messages appeared: appointment reminders, payment receipts, medication instructions.
She clicked one dated three days before the procedure.
PAID IN FULL - THANK YOU.
The attached receipt listed $14,800.
Payment method: V MERCER TRUST ACCOUNT.
Rachel turned the laptop.
Ethan leaned in.
"She paid through a trust?" Rachel asked.
"My mother runs a family trust. That doesn't mean anything."
"It means she didn't use her personal card like she told us."
Ethan's jaw shifted.
Rachel searched again.
A second receipt appeared under a different invoice number.
$28,500.
No description.
Same payment source.
Ethan whispered, "What the hell was twenty-eight thousand dollars for?"
Rachel clicked the attached PDF.
FILE CORRUPTED.
She tried downloading it.
The screen flashed an error.
Someone knocked at the front door.
Ethan flinched so visibly that Rachel almost did too.
He walked to the door and checked the camera.
Package delivery.
He opened it, signed, came back holding a small padded envelope addressed to Rachel.
No return name.
"Don't open it," he said.
Rachel tore it open.
Inside was a black USB drive.
Ethan grabbed her wrist. "Rachel."
"Whoever sent this already knows where we live."
"That's your argument for plugging a mystery drive into our computer?"
She looked at the family laptop, then at him. "Old one in the garage."
Five minutes later they were at the workbench with Ethan's obsolete laptop, disconnected from Wi-Fi.
Rachel inserted the drive.
One folder appeared.
BRIGHTON.
Inside were three scanned pages.
The first was a billing ledger showing Vivian's trust payment.
The second was a specimen transfer form, most of it blacked out.
The third contained only a partial sentence:
AUTHORIZED SUBSTITUTE SPECIMEN PER PRIVATE CONSENT.
Rachel's breathing stopped for half a beat.
"Private consent," Ethan said.
"I never signed anything like that."
He didn't answer.
"Ethan."
He stared at the screen. "How am I supposed to know what you signed?"
Rachel pushed back from the bench. "Because you know me."
"I thought I knew the biology of my son too."
The words hit and stayed there.
Rachel pulled out the USB.
"I'm finding the binder."
"What binder?"
"I kept every fertility document. Consents, drug schedules, receipts. It's in the office closet."
She hurried back inside.
The office door was half open.
Rachel stopped.
She never left it open because Noah liked pulling printer paper out by the handful.
"Ethan."
He came up behind her.
The closet door was open too.
Boxes leaned at angles. Tax folders had been pulled out. An old camera sat on the floor.
Rachel stepped over it and reached for the shelf where the blue fertility binder had lived for six years.
Empty.
"No," she said.
Ethan checked the desk drawers.
Laptop there.
Wallet there.
Rachel ran upstairs.
Jewelry box untouched.
Emergency cash still inside the dresser.
She came back down faster than her feet could manage and nearly slipped on something white near the kitchen.
A torn sheet of paper.
Ethan picked it up.
The top half was missing.
The bottom carried part of the Brighton logo, a signature line cut away, and one typed phrase.
AUTHORIZED SUBSTITUTE SPECIMEN.
Rachel reached for it.
Ethan held it just out of reach.
On the reverse side, faint ink showed through from whatever had been printed on the missing half.
He tilted it toward the window.
Three characters were visible backward through the paper.
C-17.
Rachel's phone rang.
Unknown Caller.
She answered.
A woman whispered, "If you still have the original binder, don't take it to the police."
Rachel stared at the empty shelf.
"Too late," she said. "Someone already took it."
The woman inhaled sharply.
May you like
Then hung up.
