Chapter 5 - The Child Was Never Vincent’s
Vanessa’s pregnancy was not Vincent’s.
That should have relieved me.
It did not.
An affair did not become less of an affair because biology changed afterward.
Vincent had still slept with her.
Still lied.
Still called her baby.
Still carried her into my emergency department and called her his wife.
But the truth about the pregnancy changed the crime around us.
Vanessa had undergone IVF four years earlier with her fiancé, Aaron Blake.
Aaron died in a boating accident three months before their planned wedding.
Two embryos remained frozen.
Vanessa never used them.
At least, that was what she believed.
Dr. Natalie Pierce had overseen part of her fertility treatment.
Three months before Christmas, Vanessa discovered she was pregnant.
Naturally, she thought.
She and Vincent had been sleeping together.
The timing fit.
But the embryo, according to the records found at the abandoned clinic, had been transferred without her informed consent during what Vanessa believed was a routine uterine procedure.
I stared at Rhodes when he told me.
“That is reproductive assault.”
“Yes.”
“And Natalie Pierce did it?”
“She claims her father ordered it.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know.”
I did.
Or at least, I suspected.
“Aaron Blake.”
Rhodes looked at me.
“What about him?”
“Who was he?”
They investigated.
Aaron Blake had worked as a junior analyst for a private equity firm.
One of the firm’s clients?
Moretti Development.
More specifically, he had reviewed several companies tied to Malcolm Pierce’s laundering network.
Aaron’s boating accident suddenly became suspicious.
Vanessa’s pregnancy was not a romantic accident.
It was evidence.
Someone had taken an embryo created with a dead man who had known too much and implanted it into the daughter of another missing man who had known too much.
Why?
The answer emerged forty-eight hours later.
Aaron Blake had carried a rare inherited genetic marker.
So did a blood sample found years earlier on documents seized during a federal corruption case.
The sample had never been identified.
Now investigators believed Aaron may have handled the original records linking Malcolm Pierce to offshore accounts.
Pierce apparently feared some hidden evidence might surface after Aaron’s death.
Vanessa had become leverage.
A pregnant woman carrying Aaron’s biological child was something Malcolm could threaten.
Something he could control.
Something he could use against her.
The cruelty of it made my stomach turn.
Vanessa was transferred under guard to another hospital.
I refused to be her doctor.
Not because I wanted her harmed.
Because boundaries mattered.
I had saved her life when she arrived in my ER.
That was my duty.
I did not owe her continued intimacy.
Three days after Christmas, she asked to see me.
I said no.
Then she sent a note through Agent Rhodes.
There was only one sentence.
I knew about your miscarriage before Vincent ever touched me.
I agreed to meet her.
Not because I was forgiving.
Because I needed to know.
Vanessa sat propped against pillows, pale but stable.
Her pregnancy continued.
A federal agent stood outside.
I remained near the door.
She looked smaller than I remembered.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I didn’t come for that.”
“I know.”
“How did you know about my miscarriage?”
She looked at her hands.
“Vincent told me.”
“When?”
“July.”
“Before the affair.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We were investigating the night Dominic first got sick.”
I understood.
“The night I miscarried.”
She nodded.
“Vincent hated talking about it.”
“That sounds like Vincent.”
“He blamed himself.”
“He should.”
Vanessa flinched.
I did not apologize.
“He told me he stayed with Dominic while you were at the hospital. He said that was the moment your marriage changed.”
“Our marriage changed because instead of repairing what happened, he disappeared emotionally.”
“I know.”
“No. You know the story he told you.”
She looked up.
“You’re right.”
That answer disarmed me slightly.
She continued.
“He talked about you constantly.”
I laughed.
“That makes adultery much more romantic.”
“I’m not asking you to forgive him.”
“Good.”
“I’m trying to explain why I believed him when he said your marriage was already over.”
My chest tightened.
“He said that?”
“Yes.”
I looked toward the window.
Of course he had.
The oldest sentence in the cheater’s handbook.
We’re basically separated.
We haven’t been happy for years.
The marriage is over except on paper.
“What exactly did he say?”
Vanessa swallowed.
“That you lived like roommates.”
True enough, by then.
“That you barely spoke outside schedules.”
Also true.
“That after the miscarriage, you stopped letting him touch you.”
That one enraged me.
“I stopped letting him touch me because he came home smelling like whiskey at two in the morning for months afterward and became angry whenever I cried.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
“He never told me that.”
“I’m sure he didn’t.”
“He said you hated him.”
“I did.”
“And loved him.”
I said nothing.
She looked at me.
“He loved you too.”
“Please don’t insult me.”
“I mean it.”
“Then he had a strange way of demonstrating love.”
“I think he wanted me because I didn’t know who he was before.”
That sentence was painfully perceptive.
“What do you mean?”
“With you, he was the man who failed his wife.”
I stared at her.
“With me, he was the son trying to solve his father’s murder.”
There it was.
Not love.
Escape.
Vincent had found a woman who saw him as heroic at exactly the moment I saw him as cowardly.
I hated how much sense it made.
“Did you love him?”
Vanessa’s eyes filled.
“I thought I did.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Yes.”
The truth hurt less than I expected.
Maybe because it finally stopped moving.
“Did he promise to leave me?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“He said he didn’t know what he wanted.”
I laughed softly.
“Men always know what they want when they want to avoid losing either option.”
“He told me he couldn’t abandon you.”
“Abandon me.”
The word tasted ugly.
As though marriage was charity.
Vanessa’s face tightened.
“I know how that sounds.”
“No. You know how it sounds now.”
She looked down.
“I hated you.”
That surprised me.
“Why?”
“Because he would leave my apartment when you called.”
I almost laughed.
“He rarely answered me.”
“He always checked.”
That was worse in a different way.
“He kept your wedding ring on.”
“He was married.”
“I know.”
“He kept photographs of you on his phone.”
“Congratulations. You slept with a sentimental adulterer.”
Vanessa winced.
“I deserve that.”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Then I asked the question that mattered.
“Why did you search my office?”
She inhaled.
“Dominic told my father he trusted you.”
“I know.”
“I thought you had something.”
“So you broke into my private medical records.”
“Yes.”
“And saw I was pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Six days before Christmas.”
My mind snapped into place.
“Did you tell Vincent?”
“No.”
“Why?”
She started crying.
Because for all my anger, I already knew.
“You were afraid he would leave you.”
She nodded.
I stared at her.
That was the betrayal beneath the betrayal.
Not just that she slept with my husband.
She knew I was carrying his child and deliberately kept him ignorant because she feared losing him.
“You let him believe your baby was his while knowing I was pregnant.”
“I wasn’t certain my baby wasn’t his then.”
“But you knew mine was.”
“Yes.”
I stood.
She cried harder.
“I’m sorry.”
“You keep saying that as though repetition can become restitution.”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“There isn’t anything.”
I walked toward the door.
“Claire.”
I stopped.
“Vincent didn’t know I entered your medical drawer.”
“I know.”
“He did give me the alarm code.”
“I know that too.”
“He did sleep with me.”
I turned.
Tears ran down her face.
“But he ended it before Christmas.”
That made me pause.
“When?”
“December tenth.”
Two weeks earlier.
“Why?”
“He said he was going home to tell you everything.”
I frowned.
“He didn’t.”
“He lost his nerve.”
That sounded exactly like Vincent.
“He told me the investigation was almost finished. He said he couldn’t keep living two lives.”
“And yet he went to New York with you.”
“For Dominic’s records.”
“The hotel photographs?”
“Separate rooms.”
I remembered the images.
Her hand on his chest.
His hand at her back.
Intimate.
But not proof of that night.
“We argued in the lobby,” she said. “I asked him not to leave me.”
“Did you sleep together in New York?”
“No.”
I believed her.
I wished I didn’t.
Because simple monsters were easier.
Before I left, Vanessa whispered, “I’m going to testify.”
“Against Julian?”
“Against everyone.”
“Good.”
Including herself, I thought.
Because being victimized did not erase what she had done to me.
When I returned to Emma’s apartment, Vincent was waiting outside.
Security had allowed him into the building but not the apartment.
He stood when he saw me.
I almost kept walking.
“Five minutes,” he said.
“No.”
“Please.”
“You always want five minutes after taking months.”
He absorbed that.
“I ended it with her.”
“I know.”
His face changed.
“You saw Vanessa?”
“Yes.”
“She told you?”
“She told me several things you didn’t.”
He looked ashamed.
“That seems to be a pattern.”
“Yes.”
I opened the apartment door.
He spoke quickly.
“I never told her I would leave you.”
I turned.
“You told her our marriage was basically over.”
His face tightened.
“Yes.”
“Was it?”
“I thought it was.”
“You slept in my bed every night.”
“I know.”
“You kissed me goodbye every morning.”
“I know.”
“You asked me what I wanted for Christmas.”
He looked down.
“I know.”
“You had sex with me three weeks before you started sleeping with her.”
Pain crossed his face.
“Claire.”
“No. I want you to hear how absurd your version sounds when spoken out loud.”
“You’re right.”
“You didn’t think our marriage was over. You wanted permission to behave as though it was.”
“Yes.”
That stopped me.
He looked at me directly.
“I wanted an excuse.”
At least that was honest.
“I hated who I was with you because you knew exactly what I had done when you lost the baby.”
“So you found someone who didn’t.”
“Yes.”
“And when she learned?”
“I was already trapped in what I had created.”
“No one trapped you.”
“I know.”
I stared at him.
His eyes moved toward my abdomen.
“How are you?”
“Medically?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
“Did you see your OB?”
“This morning.”
He swallowed.
“And?”
I almost refused.
Then I remembered something.
Whatever happened to our marriage, he was still this baby’s father.
“There’s a heartbeat.”
He closed his eyes.
A tear escaped.
I had imagined this moment differently.
Christmas morning.
A tiny box.
White socks.
His laughter.
His arms around me.
Instead we stood in a hallway between my sister’s apartment and an elevator while divorce papers existed downstairs in Rebecca’s office.
“How fast?” he whispered.
“One hundred seventeen.”
He smiled through tears.
“That’s good?”
“For this stage, yes.”
He covered his mouth.
I hated that I still loved him.
Not enough to take him back.
But enough to feel his joy.
“I want to come to appointments.”
“We’ll discuss that.”
“I want to be there.”
“You wanted many things while making choices that made those things impossible.”
He nodded.
“I know.”
I opened the door again.
“Claire?”
I looked back.
“I’m going to spend the rest of my life being sorry.”
“That may be true.”
His face broke.
“But your guilt is no longer my responsibility.”
I closed the door.
Inside, Emma was waiting.
She hugged me.
“How did it go?”
“I told him about the heartbeat.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m angry.”
“And?”
“I’m not cruel.”
Emma kissed my temple.
That evening, Agent Rhodes called.
They had found Julian.
Not arrested.
Found.
His car was discovered near the Connecticut border.
Blood inside.
A bullet hole through the windshield.
And on the passenger seat, a handwritten note.
It read:
Claire,
You were right to distrust everyone.
May you like
But you are still trusting the wrong person.
Ask Vincent why Aaron Blake’s boat sank.
