Chapter 10 - Benjamin’s missing years
Benjamin Voss should have been fifteen.
There were no school records.
No pediatric records after age six.
No photographs after his eighth birthday.
Officially, he barely existed.
Detective Brooks found one medical file hidden inside Peter’s archive.
Benjamin had been born with a rare immune disorder requiring repeated experimental treatment.
Malcolm Voss apparently became obsessed with developing genetically compatible tissue and gestational research after conventional therapies failed.
Project Kinship began as an attempt to save his son.
Then it became something much larger.
Julia watched Lydia’s recorded explanation from the hospital conference room.
“My son was dying,” Lydia said.
“I was a mother before I was a researcher. I told myself every line I crossed was temporary.”
Julia felt no sympathy.
Not yet.
Lydia continued.
“Malcolm believed related embryos could produce the compatible biological material Benjamin needed. Peter discovered the research and threatened to expose us before the protocol was complete.”
Julia’s hands clenched.
“So they killed him.”
Brooks paused the recording.
“We still don’t know whether Lydia intended Peter to die.”
“She sabotaged his car.”
“Yes.”
“That’s enough for me.”
The video continued.
Lydia admitted M-03 had been transferred years earlier.
Not into an adolescent.
Into a surrogate.
The resulting child had been raised under another identity.
Julia already knew what name would appear.
Lucy Crane.
Lydia’s daughter.
Except she was not Lydia’s biological daughter.
She was Julia and Peter’s.
Julia looked away from the screen.
Clara was quiet beside her.
“So Lucy is my sister.”
“Yes.”
“And the baby…”
Julia struggled with the word.
“Yes. Genetically, also your sibling.”
Clara stared toward the window.
“They stole our whole family.”
Julia had no argument.
Brooks received an emergency call.
Lucy Crane had been found.
A state trooper spotted her walking alone along a rural road twenty miles from Lydia’s farmhouse.
She was cold, frightened, and carrying no phone.
Lydia and Megan were not with her.
Julia wanted to see Lucy.
Brooks hesitated.
“She has just learned the woman she calls her mother is wanted by police.”
“I’m not going to tell her anything.”
“You may not be ready either.”
Julia looked through the glass at Clara.
“I wasn’t ready for any of this.”
Lucy was brought to a protected pediatric facility.
A voluntary DNA sample confirmed what Peter had discovered years earlier.
She was the child created from M-03.
Julia and Peter were her biological parents.
Clara’s full genetic sister.
Julia sat alone after receiving the result.
She cried for a child she had never known she had lost.
Then she cried for Lydia, because whatever else Lydia had done, Lucy loved her.
That complicated everything.
Detective Brooks interviewed Lucy gently.
“Do you know where your mother went?”
Lucy shook her head.
“She told me to walk until I found police.”
“Was Megan with you?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Mom took her somewhere else.”
“Why?”
Lucy hesitated.
“She was sick.”
“What kind of sick?”
“She kept saying she could feel something moving.”
Brooks became still.
Megan’s ultrasound at Rosewood had shown no pregnancy.
Unless the scan had been manipulated.
“Did your mother say where she was taking Megan?”
“To Benjamin.”
“Where is Benjamin?”
Lucy began crying.
“I’m not supposed to say.”
“You’re not in trouble.”
“He’s my brother.”
Brooks chose her words carefully.
“Your mother has hurt people trying to help Benjamin.”
Lucy wiped her face.
“She said people would let him die.”
“Where is he?”
Lucy looked toward the camera.
Then whispered.
“Under the old Voss clinic.”
The original fertility facility had been abandoned for eight years.
Police entered before sunrise.
The upper floors were empty.
In the basement, they found a concealed elevator.
It descended four levels below the foundation.
The lowest level contained functioning medical equipment.
And one sealed room.
Brooks opened it.
A teenage boy lay inside a protected isolation chamber.
Benjamin.
Alive.
But not alone.
Megan Foster lay unconscious in a hospital bed beside him.
Her abdomen was connected to monitoring equipment.
A portable ultrasound machine displayed a pregnancy.
Brooks stared.
Rosewood’s scan had been false.
Megan was carrying something too.
The chart at the end of her bed read:
M-04.
Julia later read the photograph Brooks sent.
“M-04?”
There had only been three embryos.
Dr. Hale looked equally confused.
Then he noticed the creation date.
M-04 had been produced thirteen years after Julia’s original IVF treatment.
Using stored reproductive material labeled:
PETER MOORE.
JULIA MOORE.
Julia stared.
May you like
Someone had created new embryos from biological material she never knew was retained.
👉 Megan’s hidden pregnancy revealed a fourth Moore embryo created years after Peter’s death, proving Lydia still possessed biological material capable of producing more children.
