Chapter 5 - The Medical Forensic
Dr. Vanessa Cole did not look like a woman who spent her life in laboratories. She arrived at the Commercial Street pier house wearing a tailored camel-hair coat, her dark hair immaculate, her fingers covered in heavy platinum rings that clicked against her leather handbag as she sat down in Dominic’s office.
She looked at Claire with a cold, aristocratic superiority that belonged to the old money hills of Boston. "Dominic," she said, her voice smooth as silk. "I was in the middle of a board meeting at Northgate. If this is about your father’s remaining estate bills, my billing department handles those—"
"Sit down, Vanessa," Dominic said.
He didn't offer her tea. He didn't offer her a seat. He remained standing behind his heavy mahogany desk, his hands deep in his pockets.
"Five years ago," Dominic said, "a girl named Danielle Carter died at your clinic. The death certificate said heart failure. But the intake form says she was part of the Vale-Harlan genetic registry."
Vanessa’s hand froze on her handbag. The smooth, unbothered expression on her face didn't shatter; it simply calcified, the lines around her mouth tightening until her lips disappeared into a thin, pale seam. "The registry is a private research initiative funded by the Vale Foundation. It’s entirely legal, Dominic. Your father wanted to study the long-term hereditary risks of his own condition."
"My father didn't study medicine, Vanessa," Dominic said, stepping around the desk until he was inches from her chair. "He studied leverage. Who was Danielle Carter?"
Vanessa looked at Claire, then back at Dominic. "She was a patient. Nothing more."
"Noah," Dominic called out.
The side door opened, and Noah Grant walked in, holding a digital tablet. On the screen was a comparative genetic matrix—two columns of red and blue bars that matched at ninety-nine point eight percent efficiency.
"The profile on the left belongs to my father, Vincent Vale," Dominic said, pointing to the screen. "The profile on the right belongs to Sophie Carter. The five-year-old girl currently sleeping in my living room."
The office went dead silent, the sound of the foghorns from the harbor filtering through the triple-pane glass.
Claire stood up from her corner chair, her breath catching in her throat. "Sophie? Sophie is Vincent Vale’s daughter?"
"No," Dominic said, his eyes never leaving Vanessa’s face. "The matrix isn't paternal. It’s fraternal. My father was seventy-two when Sophie was born. He didn't have a daughter five years ago. He had a granddaughter."
He leaned down, his face inches from Vanessa’s. "Danielle Carter wasn't an orphan from the state system, was she? She was my sister. The child my father had with that waitress from Evanston thirty-two years ago. The one he told the whole city died in the hospital nursery."
Vanessa closed her eyes, a long, slow sigh escaping her nose. "Vincent didn't want the family to know, Dominic. He was thirty-five when Danielle was born. He was in the middle of the war with the Providence families. If they knew he had a daughter outside the North End, she would have been a target before she could walk. So he paid the hospital to fake the records. He gave her to a family in Connecticut. He thought she was safe."
"Until she got sick," Claire whispered, her tears finally breaking through. "Until she came to your clinic."
"She had the family marker," Vanessa said, looking up, her voice losing its professional smoothness and turning sharp, desperate. "The same mutation that killed Vincent’s father and his grandfather. She needed an experimental gene-editing protocol that wasn't approved by the FDA. Vincent funded the research through Harbor House. The twenty-five thousand a month wasn't for the center, Claire. It was for the laboratory in the basement of Northgate that was manufacturing the customized vectors for her daughter."
May you like
"For Sophie," Dominic said.
"Yes," Vanessa said. "Sophie has the same marker, Dominic. She’s five years old. The symptoms don't start until she’s ten. But without those monthly infusions—without the research your father was buying—she won't make it to her twelfth birthday."
