Chapter 6 - The Doctor With Two SignaturesVivian refused to explain more until her attorney ended the interview.
Daniel left the detention facility with anger burning behind his eyes.
Elena walked slowly beside him, one hand supporting the weight of her stomach.
“What if she’s lying?”
“She told the truth about the trust.”
“She told enough truth to make us chase whatever direction she wants.”
Daniel stopped near the parking garage.
“She said my father had a daughter.”
“She also said he needs our baby to replace her.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Elena looked at him sharply.
Daniel almost apologized for the phrase.
Instead, he corrected himself.
“We’re going to find out.”
Dr. Raymond Ellis became the next visible link.
He had treated Vivian and Daniel for more than twenty years. After Daniel married, Vivian encouraged Elena to use him as a family physician.
Elena never trusted him completely. He directed most questions toward Daniel even when discussing her health.
Prescription logs showed Ellis’s credentials approved the altered medication instructions.
During his first interview, he denied involvement.
During the second, investigators showed him remote-login records and payments from a Mercer shell company.
He requested immunity discussions.
Ellis admitted receiving instructions through a secure telemedicine portal. The person contacting him used Michael Mercer’s physician identification, voiceprint, and private knowledge of patients.
“Did you believe Michael was alive?” Detective Grant asked.
“I believed someone wanted me to believe it.”
“Why comply?”
Ellis looked toward Daniel.
“Your father had records.”
“What records?”
“Clinical decisions I made during the original Mercer trial.”
Ellis had been a junior researcher.
Several women developed complications. Instead of reporting every incident, the research team altered classifications to protect the program.
Michael kept copies.
Years later, someone threatened to release them unless Ellis assisted with prescription changes.
“What were you told the altered medication would do?” Elena asked.
“Cause fatigue, confusion, emotional instability. I was assured the doses would remain below dangerous levels.”
“You altered treatment for a pregnant woman based on an assurance from a blackmailer.”
Ellis looked down.
“Yes.”
“Did Vivian know?”
“She knew the intended symptoms. She did not know the exact compounds.”
Daniel remembered Vivian crushing extra tablets into the water.
“Then she increased the dose herself.”
Ellis nodded.
“The message I received that night said Vivian had become impatient.”
“Who sent it?”
“The portal carried Michael’s credentials.”
Digital investigators found two authentication signatures attached to the instructions.
One belonged to Michael Mercer.
The second belonged to a person identified only as E-1.
Daniel stared at the screen.
“My sister?”
“Possibly,” Grant said.
The signature had been active within the previous month.
If E-1 was Daniel’s sister, she might also be alive.
Ellis provided an address connected to the secure portal. It belonged to an abandoned Mercer Biodyne laboratory outside Philadelphia.
Police searched the property.
The building appeared empty, but a lower-level office had been used recently. Fresh food containers remained in the trash. A medical refrigerator operated behind a false wall.
Inside were blood samples labeled with Elena’s name.
Some had been collected during ordinary prenatal appointments without her knowledge.
There were also samples carrying Daniel’s name.
And one marked:
FEMALE FETUS—LILY MERCER
Elena nearly collapsed when Detective Grant showed them the inventory photographs.
“They took samples from my baby?”
“Likely through routine screening material redirected from the hospital laboratory.”
Daniel called the hospital administrator.
The prenatal clinic had a courier contract with a Mercer subsidiary.
Every institution around them appeared connected.
The abandoned laboratory also contained video files.
Most were corrupted.
One surviving clip showed a woman seated beneath harsh fluorescent lights.
She appeared to be in her early forties, with dark hair and eyes shaped like Daniel’s.
A scar crossed her left temple.
She looked directly into the camera.
“My name is Elizabeth Mercer. Michael Mercer is my father. Vivian is not my mother.”
Daniel could barely breathe.
Elizabeth described being raised inside research facilities until age eight. Her biological mother was one of the women enrolled in the original trial.
When Vivian became pregnant with Daniel, Michael removed Elizabeth from the family home to protect his marriage and reputation.
Official records were erased.
Elizabeth said Michael later used her rare metabolic marker to continue the research privately.
The clip ended with a warning.
“If Daniel has a child with Subject E-17, the baby may carry the complete marker Michael failed to reproduce in me.”
Elena pressed one hand over her stomach.
“What does the marker do?”
The recovered file gave no answer.
Another video existed but required the two signatures found on Ellis’s instructions.
Michael Mercer.
E-1.
Before technicians could attempt access, the abandoned laboratory’s internal system wiped itself remotely.
Only one message remained on the main screen:
May you like
DANIEL CAME HOME TOO SOON. BEGIN PHASE TWO.
👉 Daniel’s early return saved Elena from the drugged water, but it also triggered a second phase controlled by the hidden sister he never knew existed.
