Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN WHO CARRIED IVYCassandra sat under guard while detectives searched the hidden pediatric unit.
She appeared devastated by the discovery of Toby’s twin, but Naomi no longer trusted devastation as proof of innocence.
“You knew there was another child,” Naomi said.
“No.”
“You watched her receive the same bottle.”
“I thought it was a training video.”
“She looks like Toby.”
“The camera never showed her whole face.”
Naomi placed a still image before her.
The resemblance was unmistakable.
Cassandra began shaking.
“I saw that girl before.”
“When?”
“At the fertility clinic.”
Cassandra remembered waking after Toby’s embryo transfer. Another woman lay behind a privacy curtain, speaking to Dr. Vane.
Cassandra heard the doctor say both procedures had succeeded.
She assumed another patient had undergone an ordinary transfer.
The woman’s name was Fiona.
Elijah’s sister recoiled.
“I never carried a child.”
Cassandra looked at her.
“She introduced herself as Fiona Mercer.”
Someone had used Fiona’s identity during Ivy’s gestation.
Medical records showed “Fiona Mercer” attending appointments, signing consent forms, and delivering Ivy five months before Toby’s birth.
The dates were impossible. Fiona had been living in Boston and appearing publicly at company meetings.
Photographs from the clinic showed a different woman wearing a dark wig and Fiona’s identification badge.
Facial analysis identified her as Dana Vane.
Dr. Malcolm Vane’s daughter.
Dana was reported dead in a hiking accident six years earlier.
No body had been recovered.
Fiona opened the delivery video.
Dana held newborn Ivy briefly before Vane removed the child.
“You promised she would go to the family,” Dana said.
“She is the family,” Vane replied.
Dana had served as gestational carrier under Fiona’s stolen identity. Vane then declared Dana dead and moved her through the hospital system under another name.
“Where is Dana now?” Detective Cole asked.
Vane refused to answer.
Elijah looked toward the hidden room.
“You created two children from Naomi’s embryo.”
Vane corrected him.
“Your father authorized the division.”
“My father died before Toby was born.”
“He signed the research agreement years earlier.”
Thomas Mercer considered the remaining embryos company assets because they were created partly through Mercer-funded fertility treatment.
Naomi’s consent restriction was removed from the private records.
Elijah’s signature appeared beneath the amendment.
He stared at it.
“I signed a storage extension.”
“You signed what was placed before you,” Naomi said.
Elijah closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
The familiar excuse did not disappear because the fraud was sophisticated.
He had accepted documents that benefited him without asking what authority they took from Naomi.
Vane looked toward her.
“You blame everyone for failing to read every page. Yet you created ARX-417 without considering how desperately families would want it.”
“I created a research molecule.”
“You created hope.”
“No. You created a market around frightened parents.”
Vane’s calm finally cracked.
“ARX could eliminate fatal childhood immune reactions.”
“It nearly killed Toby.”
“Because Cassandra failed to maintain the dosing schedule.”
Cassandra stood.
“You told me to skip yesterday.”
Everyone turned.
A message from the cloned Fiona account instructed Cassandra to withhold the morning microdose, then give the entire bottle after dinner.
The overdose was deliberate.
Vane had engineered Toby’s collapse.
He wanted the boy brought to Harborview while Naomi was on duty.
“Why me?” Naomi asked.
“Your treatment decisions completed the missing data.”
The original ARX research lacked information about how Naomi’s immune profile responded when transferred into a child during crisis. Toby’s collapse forced Naomi to provide fresh blood and create the antidote.
Vane had obtained the final biological component.
The hidden laboratory printer activated.
A patent application began printing under Mercer Biodynamics and Harborview Medical Systems.
The inventors listed were Elijah, Fiona, Vane—and Naomi.
Naomi had never consented.
Vane looked toward the page.
“Now the treatment can be finished.”
Fiona tore it from the machine.
“Where is Ivy?”
Vane’s eyes moved toward the nurses’ station.
A medical transport alert appeared.
Ivy was being moved to a private airport.
The authorizing physician was Dr. Naomi Brooks.
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A woman wearing Naomi’s face had left Harborview with the child.
👉 Ivy had been removed by another identity substitute, and the transport papers made Naomi appear responsible for the kidnapping.
