Nobody spoke much.
The expedited analysis would take several hours.
Natalie refused Andrew’s offer to drive her home.
“I don’t know where home is tonight,” she said.
She took Caleb to a hotel instead.
At 1:18 in the morning, her phone rang.
Dr.
Grant was on the line.
“Mrs.
Mercer, the confirmatory testing is complete.”
Natalie sat upright in bed.
Caleb slept beside her in a travel crib.
“Tell me.”
“Andrew Mercer is Caleb’s biological father.
The probability exceeds 99.99 percent.”
Natalie closed her eyes.
She had known.
Yet hearing it still felt like emerging from underwater.
“Thank you.”
Dr.
Grant continued carefully.
“There’s more.
Our security team identified the staff account used to alter the specimen.
It belongs to a contract phlebotomist named Melissa Crane.
She has admitted receiving money to substitute another sample.”
Natalie gripped the phone.
“From Patricia?”
“She says she was contacted by someone using an intermediary.
Our counsel and law enforcement are handling that portion.
But the physical sample she substituted was delivered to her in a sealed children’s medication pouch.”
Natalie remembered seeing those pouches before.
At Patricia’s house.
Months earlier.
A little boy named Owen had been there.
Daniel’s godson, according to the family.
The son of Patricia’s longtime house manager, Rebecca Shaw.
Owen was six.
He had Daniel’s dark eyes.
Natalie’s thoughts raced backward through years of family gatherings.
Daniel always bought Owen elaborate birthday presents.
He attended school events Rebecca couldn’t make.
Patricia insisted it was because Rebecca had worked for the Mercers for nearly two decades.
But suddenly, another explanation existed.
The following afternoon, Natalie received a message from Daniel.
Please meet me somewhere without Andrew or Mom.
I think I know whose DNA she used.
They met at a quiet café near the James River.
Daniel looked as though he had not slept.
“Owen is my son,” he said before Natalie had even removed her coat.
She stared at him.
Daniel rubbed his hands together.
“Rebecca and I were together seven years ago.
Mom found out she was pregnant.
She said Dad was already sick, the company couldn’t survive a scandal, Rebecca would be accused of using me for money.
She convinced us to keep it private.”
“Does Rebecca know Patricia had Owen’s DNA?”
“No.”
“How would Patricia get it?”
Daniel looked sick.
“Owen stayed at Mom’s house two weeks ago.
He had strep throat.
She took him to urgent care.
She could have kept a swab or gotten something from his toothbrush.
I don’t know.”
Natalie sat back.
The scheme began to take shape.
Patricia had not selected a random child’s DNA.
She had used a hidden Mercer grandchild.
That way, if anyone later examined parts of the genetic profile, the family relationship might create confusion rather than immediately expose the fraud.
But why destroy Andrew’s marriage?
Daniel supplied the answer.
“The trust.”
Natalie frowned.
“What trust?”
Daniel looked at her in disbelief.
“Andrew never told you?”
Their grandfather’s estate plan contained an unusual provision.
The Mercer Family Holdings trust would distribute controlling voting shares among verified biological descendants when Patricia turned seventy.
Her seventieth birthday was four months away.
Caleb, as Andrew’s child, gave Andrew’s branch an additional voting interest.
But there was another detail.
Andrew had recently told Patricia he intended to leave the family company
