Chapter 7 - THE DOCTOR WITH NAOMI’S FACEHospital cameras showed Naomi’s double walking beside Ivy’s gurney.
The woman wore Naomi’s white coat, hospital badge, hairstyle, and even the silver bracelet Naomi had owned since medical school.
She kept her face turned slightly from the clearest cameras, but staff members opened doors without questioning her.
A nurse later said the woman spoke with Naomi’s voice.
Elijah looked at the footage.
“How many copies of people did this project create?”
“Enough to make every witness uncertain,” Detective Cole replied.
Naomi remembered a woman inside Mercer’s research clinic eight years earlier.
After Micah died, a grief counselor visited her hospital room. Naomi’s memories of that week were fragmented by sedation, but the counselor had asked unusual questions about her posture, speech, and childhood.
Fiona searched old company photographs.
The counselor was Dana Vane.
Before carrying Ivy, Dana studied Naomi.
She did not die after the hiking accident.
She became Naomi’s substitute.
Dana had likely removed Ivy from Harborview.
Her vehicle entered Interstate 5 heading south.
Police issued an alert, but the plates changed twice within twenty minutes.
Fiona traced the transport paperwork to a private pediatric facility owned through a Mercer subsidiary.
Elijah stared at the ownership records.
“I never approved this property.”
“You signed the acquisition package,” Fiona said.
“When?”
“Two days after Micah died.”
Elijah remembered signing hundreds of documents while sedated and grieving. His father told him they concerned funeral expenses, insurance, and research closure.
One document purchased a facility called Northgate Children’s Recovery Center.
Project ARX moved there after Naomi left the company.
Elijah had been the legal owner for eight years.
His ignorance protected him emotionally.
It did not remove the power exercised in his name.
Cassandra asked to help locate the facility.
Detective Cole refused.
“You administered the drug.”
“I can still tell you how they contacted me.”
She opened a hidden compartment inside her handbag. Beneath the lining was a small electronic tag she believed monitored Toby’s medication temperature.
Fiona scanned it.
The tag transmitted more than temperature.
It recorded audio, location, and nearby devices.
Cassandra had carried a live surveillance unit for six weeks.
The signal connected to Dana’s moving vehicle.
They could track Ivy.
Police followed it toward an abandoned medical campus north of Tacoma.
Naomi remained at Harborview with Toby, though every part of her wanted to join the search. The child had begun developing another fever, and she refused to abandon him for the hidden twin she had never met.
Elijah stood beside her.
“You should hate me.”
“This is not the time to ask me to manage your guilt.”
“I knew the embryo survived.”
“You knew enough to tell me.”
“Yes.”
“You chose not to.”
“Yes.”
He did not ask forgiveness.
That was the first honest thing he had offered her.
Toby stirred.
“Is the girl okay?”
“We’re looking for her,” Naomi said.
“She doesn’t like the dark.”
“How do you know?”
“They made us talk.”
The children had communicated through tablets during dosing sessions. Toby believed Ivy was a friend from a medicine game.
He did not know she was his twin.
“She told me the doctor lady cries after she turns off the camera.”
“Dana?”
Toby nodded.
“Did she ever say anything else?”
“She said she was sorry she made us.”
Naomi looked toward Elijah.
Dana had not only carried Ivy.
She may have helped split the embryo, alter the records, and maintain the children’s treatment.
Yet Toby remembered remorse.
Remorse did not guarantee rescue.
The Northgate search team entered the facility.
They found Dana standing beside Ivy’s bed with a syringe in her hand.
She looked enough like Naomi to disturb even people who knew the truth.
Police ordered her to drop it.
Dana shook her head.
“If I stop the infusion, Ivy dies.”
“Step away,” the officer repeated.
Dana looked into the body camera.
“Tell Naomi the girl is not Toby’s twin.”
The genetic file was false.
Dana lifted Ivy’s sleeve, revealing an implanted identification chip.
The code belonged to Micah Mercer.
May you like
Naomi’s dead infant son.
👉 Ivy was carrying Micah’s medical identity, suggesting the child might have been created from more than the divided embryo.
