Chapter 7 - WHO PUT DAVID INSIDE
Lauren Pierce met them in a federal interview room under guard.
Madison had imagined this moment for six years.
She had imagined hatred. Jealousy. Vindication.
Reality felt stranger.
Lauren looked tired. Older. Blonde hair cut to her shoulders. No red
dress.
She looked at Madison.
“I’m sorry.”
Madison said, “Everyone starts with that.”
Lauren almost smiled.
Then David entered.
Her face changed.
He stopped in the doorway.
“You’re alive.”
“Yes.”
“You knew I was alive.”
Lauren looked down.
“Not all of the time.”
David sat.
Madison watched both of them.
No romance.
Whatever they had was something else.
Damage, perhaps.
Naomi began.
“Why did you return to St. Catherine?”
Lauren answered.
“To get the master archive.”
“Did you?”
“Part of it.”
“Did you help arrange David Parker’s February admission?”
Silence.
David turned toward her.
Lauren closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Madison stared.
David said nothing for three seconds.
Then:
“You gave them my location.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I needed proof the ghost-patient mechanism was still active.”
“You used me.”
“Yes.”
Lauren did not hide.
That made the betrayal worse and cleaner.
David stood.
Naomi said, “Sit.”
He did.
Barely.
Lauren continued.
“I believed Caleb Frost’s security team would detain you, process you
through C7, and transfer you. I did not know they would drug you for
four days.”
David laughed.
“That distinction means a lot to you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Madison watched.
Six years ago, David had denied Madison agency. Three years later,
Lauren did the same to David.
Everyone in this story believed they were entitled to use someone else
for a larger plan.
Lauren looked at Madison.
“I’m not asking you to forgive anything.”
“Good.”
“I am telling you the archive proves the system now tracks more than
billing.”
“What?”
“Genetic samples. Treatment outcomes. experimental procedures.”
Madison went cold.
“My samples?”
“Yes.”
Naomi leaned forward.
“Where?”
“Cold archive. Sub-level C.”
St. Catherine had a sub-level no public blueprint showed.
A federal search warrant went out.
By midnight, agents entered the cold archive.
The shelves contained tissue samples, blood cards, old radiology films,
fertility files, and decades of cross-referenced identities.
Madison’s name appeared on thirty-seven files.
Thirty-seven.
She stared.
“I have been hospitalized twice in my life.”
Naomi nodded.
“We’ll sort real from false.”
Then Lauren pulled one old reproductive endocrinology file.
Patient: MADISON PARKER.
Procedure: oocyte retrieval.
Madison laughed.
“No.”
Date: twelve years earlier.
“I never did this.”
Naomi opened the genetic-source field.
Female source: coded. Paternal reference: JONATHAN PARKER.
Madison’s father.
Her stomach turned.
“What does that mean?”
Naomi held up a hand.
“Not what you think until we verify.”
Lauren looked at the file.
“I never saw this.”
David stared at Madison.
May you like
She looked back at him.
The medical conspiracy had just entered her family’s bloodline.
