Chapter 6 - THE FILE THEY CREATED ABOUT ME
The report called me unstable.
Paranoid.
Emotionally volatile.
It claimed I had displayed obsessive jealousy toward Mason.
It claimed I had threatened self-harm during pregnancy.
None of it was true.
But it looked official.
There was a physician's signature.
Hospital letterhead.
Dates.
Clinical notes.
Everything.
I felt more violated reading that document than I had when I discovered the affair.
Mason hadn't just planned to leave me.
He had prepared to destroy my credibility first.
Noah read each page carefully.
"This was built over months."
I looked at him.
"You mean fabricated."
"Yes."
"But not carelessly."
Luka stood near the door with his arms crossed.
"Selena."
Noah nodded.
"She had access."
I remembered every appointment Mason insisted I attend alone.
Every time he told me a scheduler had changed something.
Every time Selena somehow knew personal details about me before I even knew she existed.
My anger turned cold.
"Can he take my daughter?"
"No."
Noah answered immediately.
"But he can create chaos."
"He wants you scared enough to negotiate."
"Negotiate what?"
Luka answered.
"The records."
I looked at him.
He was right.
Mason wasn't fighting for the baby he had refused to hold.
He was fighting for control of evidence.
Noah arranged an emergency hearing.
Dr. Porter provided a statement confirming that Mason's paternity had been preliminarily excluded.
My obstetrician confirmed I had shown no psychiatric instability during pregnancy.
The fake doctor listed on the evaluation turned out to be retired.
And living in Arizona.
He denied ever meeting me.
By late afternoon, Mason's emergency petition had collapsed.
But the judge did something none of us expected.
She ordered all fertility records connected to my pregnancy preserved immediately.
Every server.
Every backup.
Every access log.
Every paper archive.
Nothing could legally be destroyed.
When Noah told me, I felt relief for the first time.
It lasted eleven minutes.
Then St. Catherine's data center caught fire.
The alarm sounded through the hospital.
Staff rushed down the hall.
Nobody panicked because the fire was contained in a separate building across the campus.
But Luka's face told me everything.
"Records."
He was already moving.
Noah stopped him.
"Security will handle it."
Luka looked toward me.
"Stay here."
Something in his voice frightened me.
Not because he sounded scared.
Because he sounded certain.
Twenty minutes later, the fire department contained the flames.
Nobody was injured.
But one server room had been destroyed.
The exact room containing the fertility archive.
Dr. Porter came into my room looking sick.
"I'm so sorry."
I stared at her.
"Was it an accident?"
She couldn't answer.
Noah's phone rang.
He listened.
Then slowly looked toward Luka.
"The court preservation order went into effect at 3:17."
Luka glanced at the clock.
The fire had started at 3:26.
Nine minutes.
Somebody had destroyed the records nine minutes after a judge ordered them preserved.
I held my daughter tighter.
Then Luka's phone vibrated.
A message from an unknown number appeared.
It contained a photograph.
My mother.
Standing outside her house.
Taken less than a minute earlier.
May you like
Beneath it were six words.
STOP DIGGING INTO M-17, AVERY.
