Chapter 4 - THE DNA THEY WANTED
Stellan sent a doctor to the mansion before I could object.
Dr. Naomi Chen was not his doctor, he said. She was a pediatric cardiologist who had once treated his younger cousin and owed the Cross family nothing.
Fern slept through the cheek swab.
Stellan took his own sample in front of me, sealed it, and handed it directly to Dr. Chen.
“No private labs,” I said.
“Agreed.”
“No Cross employees touching the results.”
“Agreed.”
“No changing her records.”
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t change children’s records.”
I almost said, I don’t know what you do.
But I already knew enough to be afraid of the answer.
While we waited, Stellan’s security chief, Elias Ward, returned from my apartment.
He placed a broken pink plastic box on the desk.
I recognized it immediately.
Fern’s NICU keepsake box.
Inside I had stored her first hospital bracelet, ultrasound photos, and the tiny cap she wore the night she nearly stopped breathing.
The cap was gone.
Stellan looked at Elias. “Why take that?”
“DNA,” Elias said.
I felt sick.
Someone had stolen an object carrying Fern’s skin cells.
Stellan turned to me. “Who knew you kept it?”
“My mother. My old roommate. Maybe a nurse.”
“Gavin?”
“No.”
Elias set down another bag.
“We found this under the crib.”
A black listening device.
My breath caught.
“How long?” Stellan asked.
“Battery type suggests weeks, maybe months.”
I stared at it.
Someone had been listening.
Stellan’s jaw flexed.
“Elias, find out who entered that building.”
Elias hesitated.
“What?”
“The landlord gave us the access logs.”
He slid over a printed page.
One electronic key had opened my apartment four times in the past month.
The key belonged to Cross Security.
Stellan looked up slowly.
May you like
Elias went pale.
“Sir, that code belongs to me.”
