Chapter 9 - TWENTY-SEVEN BABIES
Twenty-seven photographs lay across Rachel Perkinson’s kitchen table by midnight.
Police photographed every document before removing them.
Nora viewed copies through a secure link.
Each folder contained a woman’s name.
Embryology information.
Transfer data.
Storage identifiers.
And photographs of children.
Some babies.
Some toddlers.
One boy looked nearly six.
Nora felt physically sick.
This had been happening for years.
Dr. Voss had not stolen only Nora’s embryos.
Heather had apparently discovered evidence involving many patients.
Or helped collect it.
The distinction mattered.
Nora zoomed in on the first folder.
A woman from Tucson.
Two embryos listed as nonviable.
A photograph showed twin girls in Colorado.
Another file belonged to a Nevada patient.
Embryos supposedly destroyed after unpaid storage fees.
A photograph showed a boy in California.
Every file had handwritten marks.
Numbers.
Dates.
Payment amounts.
Daniel whispered.
“This is an operation.”
Elaine nodded.
“A profitable one.”
Nora stared at the amounts.
$60,000.
$85,000.
$120,000.
Different fees.
Different recipients.
Some folders had initials.
K.F. appeared in six.
S.V. appeared in nearly all.
G.H. appeared on transportation records.
Heather’s initials appeared too.
H.P.
Nora’s anger returned.
“She participated.”
Elaine did not disagree.
“Possibly.”
Rachel had insisted Heather was not a criminal.
She claimed her sister discovered the scheme while employed at the clinic.
But Heather had taken files without reporting them.
Then accepted money from Kristina.
Then entered a surrogacy arrangement.
Then had an affair with Edgar.
Hero and victim did not fit comfortably.
Neither did villain.
People could be several things at once.
Nora hated complexity tonight.
She wanted clean lines.
Guilty.
Innocent.
Friend.
Enemy.
Instead she had Heather.
A woman who might have helped steal embryos.
A woman who carried Nora’s biological daughter.
A woman who slept with Nora’s husband.
A woman currently missing and possibly terrified for her life.
Elaine opened Heather’s employment history.
“She was twenty-eight when she worked at the clinic.”
Nora nodded.
“Financial problems?”
“Significant.”
“Her mother’s cancer treatment began around then.”
Daniel added.
“Medical debt approximately two hundred thousand.”
Nora saw the possibility.
Dr. Voss could have recruited Heather.
Money in exchange for access.
Then Kristina found her.
Or Voss introduced them.
Nora asked.
“Why would Kristina need Heather specifically?”
Elaine thought.
“Access.”
“Compliance.”
“Vulnerability.”
“Maybe all three.”
Daniel looked at the surrogacy paperwork.
“And Heather already knew how the clinic systems worked.”
Nora remembered Kristina’s words.
Ask Heather who chose her.
Maybe Voss chose Heather.
Maybe Kristina did.
Maybe Edgar had less influence than everyone assumed.
Then Elaine found a payment from Dr. Voss’s private foundation to Heather.
$48,000.
Date.
Four years ago.
While Heather worked at the clinic.
Another payment.
$35,000.
A month later.
Then nothing for nearly two years.
Then Perkinson Family Services began receiving money from Finch Consulting.
Nora whispered.
“She was paid before she left.”
Daniel nodded.
“She probably knows why.”
If they found her alive.
The thought lodged painfully.
At 1:18 a.m., Alvarez called.
The blood in Heather’s apartment was Edgar’s.
Nora closed her eyes.
Heather’s claim was confirmed.
Edgar had been attacked there.
His injuries matched.
That meant Heather likely had not staged the blood scene.
Halden remained primary suspect.
Police had located Halden’s dark Range Rover near Apache Junction.
Abandoned.
Inside they found Ava’s diaper bag.
Heather’s scarf.
And a syringe.
Nora’s stomach turned.
“What was in it?”
“Lab pending.”
“Any blood?”
“Trace amounts.”
“Whose?”
“Pending.”
Nora looked toward Daniel.
“Where did they go?”
Alvarez said trackers showed another vehicle had been nearby.
A pickup truck.
Stolen.
Plate changed twice.
Professional.
At 2:06 a.m., Elaine discovered Halden had a private aviation license.
Nora immediately thought of remote airstrips.
Arizona had hundreds.
Daniel contacted investigators.
Police checked known aircraft registrations.
Halden owned none.
But Sonoran Wildlife Education did.
A small single-engine plane.
Registered jointly with Cody Mears.
The reptile handler.
Nora stared.
The snake man and the surveillance man shared an airplane.
Law enforcement issued alerts to regional airports.
At 2:40, one small municipal airport reported a plane matching the registration departed at 4:52 p.m.
Destination not filed.
Four people had boarded.
Two men.
One woman.
One infant.
Nora’s chest tightened.
“They’re gone.”
Elaine shook her head.
“Not necessarily far.”
Fuel range.
Weather.
Flight tracking.
Radar.
Authorities began reconstructing.
The plane headed northeast.
Toward New Mexico or Colorado.
Nora immediately thought of company locations.
Her operations extended across Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico.
Someone might use her own facilities.
She called Marcus.
“Any remote properties near the New Mexico border?”
“Several yards.”
“Unused?”
“A closed aggregate site near St. Johns.”
“Airstrip?”
Marcus stopped.
“Yes.”
Nora closed her eyes.
An old service strip once used by survey aircraft.
Almost nobody outside senior operations would remember it.
But Edgar had toured the property with Nora two years earlier.
So had Thomas Keene.
Nora’s IT director.
Marcus understood.
“I’m calling state police.”
“No company emails.”
“Right.”
“Use your personal secure line.”
“I will.”
Twenty minutes later, patrol units headed toward the closed site.
At 3:18, they found fresh tire tracks.
No plane.
No people.
But someone had opened a maintenance building recently.
Inside were diapers.
Bottled water.
And a laptop bag.
Empty.
Again, the suspects had moved.
Again, they seemed one step ahead.
Nora looked at Elaine.
“There’s definitely a leak.”
Elaine agreed.
“Or they preplanned multiple stops.”
Daniel added.
“Either explanation is bad.”
Nora’s phone remained sealed.
She had changed communication devices.
Daniel used encrypted calls.
Marcus limited company staff.
Still the kidnappers escaped.
At dawn, police detained Thomas Keene at Phoenix Sky Harbor.
He had purchased a one-way ticket to Costa Rica.
Nora listened in disbelief.
Thomas.
Her IT director.
The man who fixed projector problems before board meetings.
The man whose children Nora sent graduation gifts.
Police found $22,000 in cash in his carry-on.
And a hardware authentication device cloned from Nora’s corporate systems.
Elaine smiled without humor.
“There’s your internal access.”
Nora felt betrayed yet again.
Thomas refused questioning.
His lawyer arrived.
But his laptop provided quick answers.
He had accessed Nora’s executive files.
He had cloned her credentials.
He had helped the burglar enter the office.
And he had exchanged encrypted messages with Gregory Halden.
Nora whispered.
“Why?”
Elaine checked financial records.
Thomas owed nearly $600,000 from speculative investments.
Halden paid him.
Kristina’s entity indirectly funded those payments.
Nora laughed bitterly.
“My money again.”
Elaine nodded.
“Your wealth made corruption convenient.”
Thomas had also accessed the private audit activity.
That explained how the kidnappers knew Elaine was investigating.
But Thomas had been detained before the Copper Ridge raid.
Could he have warned them?
Yes.
Encrypted message sent three minutes after the location was identified.
The leak was confirmed.
That gave Nora some relief.
At least one invisible enemy now had a name.
Then police searched Thomas’s home.
They found a box in his garage.
Inside were copies of Nora’s medical records.
Corporate access maps.
Travel schedules.
And photographs of Daniel Moore.
Nora looked at Daniel.
“Why you?”
He did not answer.
Another folder contained Marcus.
His home.
His wife.
His children’s school.
Nora’s stomach dropped.
“They were preparing to remove both of you.”
Elaine’s earlier theory returned.
If Nora were incapacitated and Daniel or Marcus became unavailable, Edgar’s authority expanded.
The murder plot had alternatives.
A system.
Plan A.
Plan B.
Maybe Plan C.
Nora immediately called Marcus.
“Move your family.”
“What?”
“Now.”
She explained.
Marcus became silent.
Then furious.
“I’ll handle it.”
“Do not play hero.”
“I’m not.”
“Private security is coming.”
“Nora—”
“This is not optional.”
He finally agreed.
Daniel’s wife was already staying with their daughter in Seattle.
Daniel arranged security anyway.
At 8:30 a.m., prosecutors formally charged Kristina with multiple offenses related to the snake incident and evidence tampering.
Additional charges remained under investigation.
Bail would be contested.
Nora felt no satisfaction.
Kristina was one person.
The system remained alive.
At 9:05, the federal government entered the fertility investigation.
Because records crossed state lines.
Because embryos had moved between Arizona, California, Nevada, Colorado, and possibly New Mexico.
Because payments moved through shell companies.
Because children were involved.
Nora now had FBI agents in her hotel suite.
One specialized in healthcare fraud.
Another in kidnapping.
A third in financial crimes.
Nora told the story again.
She wondered how many times a person had to repeat betrayal before it stopped feeling personal.
At 10:14, an agent received a flight lead.
The Sonoran Wildlife plane had landed near Farmington, New Mexico.
No passengers remained when local authorities arrived.
A security camera captured a dark pickup leaving.
Four people visible.
Two men.
Woman.
Infant seat.
Nora closed her eyes.
Heather and Ava.
Still together.
Still moving.
The camera also captured one of the men clearly.
Gregory Halden.
The second man surprised everyone.
Dr. Samuel Voss.
Nora stared at the photograph.
Her fertility doctor.
The man who had sat across from her and said he was sorry her embryo had not survived.
Now traveling with the woman carrying that embryo’s child.
Nora felt rage sharpen into purpose.
“Find him.”
The FBI agent nodded.
“We will.”
At noon, another development arrived.
Dr. Voss had rented a medical office in Durango, Colorado, under a shell corporation.
Federal agents raided it.
Empty.
But inside they found cryogenic equipment.
Records.
Medications.
And a list of names.
Thirty-four women.
Nora’s name was number eleven.
Beside each woman’s name was a code.
Some said D.
Some S.
Some P.
Nora’s entry said P-3.
Daniel asked.
“What does P mean?”
Nobody knew.
Then an embryologist reviewing the records called.
The codes appeared to describe outcomes.
D meant donor transfer.
S meant storage.
P appeared to mean placed.
Nora’s code P-3 suggested three embryos placed.
Ava.
The twins.
All three accounted for.
Nora should have felt relief that no more biological children were hidden.
She did not.
Because beside her name was another notation.
Priority family.
And beside that:
K.F. private selection.
Kristina had selected where Nora’s embryos went.
Who received them.
Who carried them.
Who raised them.
Nora stared until rage blurred her vision.
Then the FBI agent slid another page across the table.
A list of payments.
One payment came from an account Nora recognized immediately.
Edgar’s personal brokerage account.
Amount.
$250,000.
Date.
Three years and nine months earlier.
Memo.
Family completion.
Nora whispered.
“He paid for this.”
Daniel said nothing.
Elaine closed her eyes.
Nora had wanted one final reason to believe Edgar was weak rather than cruel.
The bank transfer destroyed it.
Then her emergency phone rang.
Federal agents traced live.
Nora answered.
A child’s voice came through.
Not Heather.
Not an adult.
A little boy.
“Hello?”
Nora stopped breathing.
“Hi.”
The boy whispered.
“Are you Nora?”
Every person in the room froze.
Nora’s hands shook.
“Yes.”
The boy spoke softly.
“Grandma Kristina said you were the bad lady.”
Nora closed her eyes.
The twins.
It had to be the boy from the photograph.
She controlled her voice.
“What’s your name?”
Someone shouted in the background.
The child whispered quickly.
“Eli.”
Nora’s heart broke.
Then he said.
“My sister says you have her smile.”
May you like
The call ended.
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