Chapter 5 - THE CALL FROM RACHEL
Rachel would speak only to Sarah.
Not police.
Not Maya.
Not Dr. Miller.
Sarah called back from a secured room while Hayes listened with permission.
A woman answered.
“Is Emma safe?”
“Yes.”
“The babies?”
“Alive. Stable.”
Rachel began crying.
Sarah let her.
“Where are you?”
“I can't tell you.”
“Robert is in custody.”
“For how long?”
Sarah looked at Hayes.
He shook his head.
Not long enough.
“Rachel, we need to find you.”
“No.”
“You may need medical care.”
“I have help.”
“Who?”
Silence.
Sarah changed approach.
“Emma thinks you died.”
Rachel sobbed harder.
“I know.”
“She needs you.”
“I know.”
“Then help me understand.”
Rachel took a long breath.
“Robert wasn't always like this.”
The research began after Emma was born.
Rachel worked for Robert's biotech company, Parker Neurogenetics.
Emma developed unusual episodes as a toddler—fainting under extreme stress, temperature irregularities, atypical autonomic responses.
Doctors could not explain them.
Robert became obsessed.
Not with curing her.
With studying her.
He believed Emma's genetics might help his company develop therapies for neonatal stress disorders.
At first Rachel consented to ordinary tests.
Then she discovered Robert had quietly expanded the project.
More bloodwork.
Behavioral stress assessments.
Sleep monitoring.
Isolation protocols.
Emma became Candidate Seventeen.
“Why seventeen?”
“She was the seventeenth child screened.”
Sarah closed her eyes.
“How many others?”
“I don't know.”
That answer was worse.
Rachel eventually withdrew Emma.
Robert promised the research ended.
It hadn't.
Years later, when Rachel became pregnant with twins, Robert offered free specialized prenatal care.
Rachel accepted because money was tight after her husband's death.
Then she found internal documents.
Robert planned to compare the twins' newborn responses with Emma's old data.
Without proper independent approval.
Without informed consent.
“Did he experiment on Noah and Grace?”
“Not yet.”
Rachel's voice broke.
“I stopped him.”
“What happened after the birth?”
“They sedated me.”
“Robert?”
“I don't know who gave the order.”
“When I woke up, the babies were gone.”
Emma had hidden under Rachel's bed during the confusion.
Rachel whispered instructions.
Take the twins if you can.
Find people.
Find a hospital.
Do not go with Robert.
Then staff returned.
Rachel pretended to remain unconscious.
Emma escaped through a service corridor, found the newborns in portable bassinets, wrapped them, and used an old garden wheelbarrow from behind the maintenance shed.
“How did Rachel get away?” Hayes asked quietly.
Sarah relayed.
Rachel escaped hours later with help from an employee.
“Who?”
Rachel refused.
“Because they're still inside,” she said.
Inside what?
Robert's organization.
The call ended before they could learn more.
Police traced it to a prepaid phone near Dayton.
Rachel was moving.
Robert's attorneys secured his release pending investigation that afternoon.
No charge yet tied him directly to assault.
The research violations were still being examined.
Maya was furious.
“He'll run.”
Hayes answered, “Or he'll lead us somewhere.”
Robert did neither.
He held a press conference.
His lawyers portrayed Rachel as unstable.
They released parts of her psychiatric history following her husband's death.
Grief counseling became “mental-health treatment.”
Postpartum anxiety became “documented instability.”
He accused her of abducting confidential data and manipulating Emma.
It was sophisticated.
Cruel.
And effective.
Public opinion fractured within hours.
Then Robert produced something worse.
A signed consent form.
Rachel Parker's signature.
Authorizing Emma's participation as Candidate Seventeen.
Sarah stared at it.
“Could it be forged?”
Maya shook her head.
“Maybe. But Rachel herself admitted she initially consented to testing.”
Robert had found the one truth that could make all his lies more believable.
Then Dr. Miller entered.
He carried a laboratory report.
“Sarah.”
“What?”
“We ran a broader metabolic screen on Emma because of what Rachel told us.”
Sarah's face tightened.
“Is she sick?”
“I don't know.”
He handed her the report.
One marker was abnormal.
Rare.
Very rare.
And it was also present in Noah.
And Grace.
Robert's theory about the siblings' shared biology had not been entirely wrong.
But the final note frightened Miller most.
The same marker appeared in a proprietary research paper filed four years earlier.
May you like
The listed lead investigator:
Rachel Parker.
