Chapter 16 - LOVE OR LEVERAGEPaula looked smaller than I expected.
Bandages covered one side of her face.
A police officer stood outside the hospital room.
Her attorney sat beside the window.
“I never intended to hurt a child,” she said.
“Then tell the truth.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Olivia told me Claire and you had agreed to one final fertility attempt.”
“We hadn’t.”
“I know that now.”
“What did you do?”
Paula swallowed.
She admitted accessing my stored sample.
She prepared it for use.
But before the procedure, Claire arrived unexpectedly with Olivia.
Claire became suspicious.
She asked questions.
Olivia took her into another room.
“When they returned,” Paula said, “Claire agreed.”
My chest tightened.
“Agreed to what?”
“To an insemination using your sample.”
“Did she sign consent?”
“Olivia gave me a form.”
“Was the signature genuine?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer was not enough.
But it explained the timeline.
Claire may have known my sample was used.
Or she may have been pressured after the procedure had already begun.
Either way, the baby was likely mine.
“Why did Claire later create a report naming Ryan?”
Paula looked toward her attorney.
“I only learned about Ryan afterward. Olivia asked me to obtain a genetic profile from a used drinking glass. She said it belonged to the potential father.”
“Ryan’s glass?”
“I assume so.”
“And?”
“He could not be excluded based on the limited comparison. It wasn’t a legal paternity test.”
Uncertainty again.
Claire had transformed uncertainty into certainty because certainty gave her power.
To Ryan, she said the baby was his.
To me, she implied the baby was mine.
To Olivia, she promised access to both possibilities.
Love had nothing to do with it.
Leverage did.
Paula agreed to provide a sworn statement.
As I left the hospital, Ryan called from his attorney’s office.
“I know where Olivia is.”
“How?”
“She contacted me.”
“What does she want?”
“The mirror files.”
“Those are already with police.”
“She doesn’t believe that.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That I could get them.”
I stopped beside my car.
“You’re trying to negotiate a deal.”
“I’m trying not to go to prison.”
“You helped forge financial records.”
“I know.”
His voice broke.
“I also believed I was protecting my child.”
“The child you planned to raise with stolen money?”
Silence.
Then he said, “There is no answer that makes me look like a good man.”
At least that was honest.
Ryan proposed cooperating with police.
He would meet Olivia while wearing a recording device.
In exchange, prosecutors would consider his assistance.
Before ending the call, he said something unexpected.
“Claire never loved me.”
I looked at the dark hospital windows.
“No,” I said. “But that doesn’t make what you did to me less real.”
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“I know.”
Then he whispered, “Olivia says Claire is about to run.”
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