Chapter 3 - The Result Nobody Expected
Daniel arrived at the testing center thirty minutes after I called him.
He looked pale.
“What did they say?”
I handed him the printed report.
The first page was simple.
Probability of paternity.
99.9998 percent.
Maisie was Daniel’s daughter.
Daniel stared at the number for a long time.
Then he covered his face.
“Oh God.”
I did not comfort him.
“You doubted her.”
“I know.”
“Your mother chained her outside because she decided my child was illegitimate.”
“I know.”
“And you let her put me on trial.”
“I know.”
He looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
“Maisie deserves the apology.”
He nodded.
Then I turned to page four.
“There’s more.”
His eyes moved over the genetic analysis.
“I don’t understand.”
The counselor sitting across from us folded her hands.
“Mr. Mercer, you included your father’s archived DNA profile from the Mercer ancestry project.”
Daniel nodded.
“My dad did one of those family genealogy studies before he died.”
“That sample provides enough markers for comparison.”
“And?”
“There is no biological father-son relationship between you and Richard Mercer.”
Daniel stared at her.
“That’s impossible.”
“I’m afraid it isn’t.”
“My father died twelve years ago.”
“I understand.”
“He raised me.”
“I’m not questioning that.”
Daniel pushed the paper away.
“There must be a mistake.”
“We ran the comparison twice.”
He stood.
“My mother would have told me.”
I almost said something.
Then I remembered Judith’s face.
That strange certainty when she said Maisie was not a Mercer.
Maybe Judith had spent forty years hiding a secret and suddenly became obsessed with blood because she knew exactly how fragile the Mercer bloodline really was.
Daniel drove directly to Judith’s house.
I followed because I wanted answers too.
Judith opened the door and smiled when she saw him.
“Well?”
Daniel held up the envelope.
“Maisie is mine.”
Judith’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
But I saw it.
“So the test was wrong.”
“No.”
Daniel stepped inside.
“The test was right.”
She frowned.
“What are you talking about?”
Daniel placed the second page on the table.
“Dad wasn’t my biological father.”
Judith froze.
Not confusion.
Not disbelief.
Fear.
Pure fear.
Daniel saw it too.
“Mom?”
She stepped backward.
“Those tests are unreliable.”
“Who was my father?”
“Richard was your father.”
“Biologically.”
“You’re upset.”
“WHO WAS HE?”
Maisie was not with us, so I let Daniel shout.
Judith’s lips trembled.
Then she looked at me.
And suddenly I understood.
This was not simply an old affair.
She was afraid of what the answer would expose.
Daniel grabbed the back of a chair.
“Mom.”
Judith whispered a name.
“Thomas Vale.”
Daniel stopped breathing.
I knew the name.
Everyone in town did.
Thomas Vale had founded Mercer-Vale Industries with Richard Mercer almost forty-two years earlier.
He had also disappeared in 1988.
His car had been found beside a river.
May you like
His body had never been recovered.
And according to every family story I had ever heard, Richard Mercer had spent the rest of his life blaming himself for Thomas’s death.
