Chapter 14 - The Child Between Them
Lauren refused to believe the report.
We met inside a protected interview room at the district attorney’s office.
Owen slept nearby under the supervision of a child specialist.
Lauren read the laboratory results three times.
“No.”
She whispered.
“Victor never touched me.”
“Then how is this possible?”
Ortiz asked.
Lauren pressed both hands against her temples.
Three years earlier, she had attended a Sterling Holdings retreat in Napa Valley.
After the closing dinner, she became violently ill.
She remembered Victor bringing her water.
She remembered waking the next morning in her room with no memory of several hours.
Lauren had believed she drank too much.
She never reported anything.
Months later, when she discovered she was pregnant, she assumed the father was Matthew.
Matthew encouraged that belief.
He paid for the private doctor who arranged the original paternity test.
That test had been falsified.
“He knew.”
Lauren’s voice cracked.
“He always knew Owen wasn’t his.”
My mother’s investigator had obtained the real sample through a discarded bottle.
Victor had likely known as well.
Owen was not merely leverage over Lauren.
He was evidence that could destroy Victor.
“Why would Matthew keep the child close?”
I asked.
Lauren stared through the glass at Owen.
“Because Victor paid him.”
The offshore records confirmed it.
Every month after Owen’s birth, Helix Crown transferred money into Matthew’s secret accounts.
Matthew promised to keep Victor’s identity hidden.
In return, Victor financed the theft of NexusCore.
Lauren had been manipulated by both men.
That did not erase her choices.
She had stolen company funds.
She had helped forge documents.
She had listened when Matthew struck me.
“I need you to understand something.”
I told her.
“Being deceived does not make you innocent.”
She lowered her eyes.
“I know.”
“But telling the truth can stop them from doing this to someone else.”
Lauren looked toward her son.
“What happens to me?”
“That is for the court.”
“What would you do?”
It was not the question I expected.
Months earlier, I might have imagined destroying her.
Now I saw a frightened woman whose ambition had turned her into an accomplice.
“I would testify.”
I said.
“I would return everything.”
“I would accept the consequences.”
“And I would spend the rest of my life becoming someone my child could trust.”
Lauren wiped her face.
Then she asked for the prosecutor.
Her testimony led investigators to a private server hidden beneath Helix Crown’s office.
The server contained messages between Victor and Matthew.
One message had been sent the morning after my mother’s funeral.
Victor wrote that Richard Sterling was vulnerable.
Matthew replied that I had refused to speak to my father.
May you like
Then he added another sentence.
She still thinks her mother died naturally.
