Chapter 2 - THE DOCTOR WHO KNEW TOO MUCH AND NOT ENOUGH
Franklin Yates did not sit.
Neither did Lawson.
Prescott remained between them.
Elena stood near the window gripping the back of a chair.
The medical report lay on Lawson’s desk.
Franklin looked at it as though it had returned from a grave.
“My father told me the first embryo screen was contaminated.”
Lawson said:
“You knew that.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I believed him.”
Elena laughed once.
No humor.
“You believed him so thoroughly you helped fire me?”
Franklin’s face changed.
“I did not fire you.”
“You signed the internal review.”
“I was a fellow. My father told me you had released records without consent.”
“I had consent.”
“I know that now.”
Good.
“Since when?”
“Since Genevieve came to me.”
Lawson went still.
“When?”
“Two weeks before the crash.”
There.
Genevieve had spoken to Franklin too.
“What did she say?”
“She had the original report. She wanted the retest.”
“Did you have it?”
“No.”
“Did your father?”
Franklin looked down.
“He said it had been destroyed after confirming laboratory error.”
“Was there confirmation?”
“I never saw it.”
Good.
“Did you ask?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He told me to stay out of reproductive medicine.”
Lawson laughed softly.
Dangerous.
“So you stayed out.”
“Yes.”
Good.
Honest.
“For seven years.”
Franklin looked at Jonah and Blythe’s names on tablet.
“I was twenty-nine. He was my father, my employer, and the most powerful physician I knew.”
Elena said:
“That explains fear. Not seven years.”
Franklin looked at her.
“You disappeared.”
“You mean I got fired and someone broke into my apartment.”
“I didn’t know about the break-in.”
“Convenient.”
“Yes.”
Good.
Lawson raised hand.
“Genevieve.”
Franklin swallowed.
“She asked me whether Fanconi anemia could cause childhood leukemia.”
“And?”
“I said yes.”
“Did you tell her to test the twins?”
“Yes.”
Lawson’s pulse thudded.
“Were they tested?”
“I ordered chromosomal breakage testing and a genetic panel.”
There.
“What happened?”
Franklin looked sick.
“The samples were canceled.”
“By who?”
“My father’s office.”
Silence.
Prescott said:
“Raymond was not their treating doctor.”
“He had administrative authority over the lab network.”
Of course.
Lawson’s jaw clenched.
“Why would he cancel?”
“He called me that night.”
“What did he say?”
Franklin closed eyes.
“He said Genevieve was panicking over an old contaminated sample and that putting the children through testing would create unnecessary fear.”
“And you accepted.”
“For three days.”
Good.
“Then?”
“I reordered through another lab.”
Elena looked at him sharply.
“What result?”
“I never got one.”
“Why?”
“Genevieve died.”
Lawson’s face became stone.
“That does not cancel a lab.”
“No.”
There.
“What happened?”
Franklin said:
“The requisition vanished from the outside lab system.”
Elena whispered:
“Someone canceled again.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Lawson stared.
Franklin continued.
“The account showed patient-requested cancellation.”
“Genevieve was dead.”
“Yes.”
There.
Forgery.
Or administrative error.
But likely.
Lawson asked:
“Did you report?”
“No.”
Prescott swore softly.
Franklin’s face twisted.
“I confronted my father.”
“And?”
“He told me to let dead people rest.”
There.
Lawson took another step.
Prescott blocked again.
Good.
“Why did you not tell me?”
Franklin looked Lawson directly.
“Because my father said if you learned he had interfered with your children’s medical records, you would kill him.”
Silence.
Lawson did not deny.
Good.
Franklin continued.
“And I believed him.”
There.
The truth was ugly because it implicated Lawson’s reputation too.
His violence had made people hide information from him.
Not excuse.
Still cause.
Good.
Lawson stepped back.
Prescott relaxed slightly.
Franklin said:
“I told myself the twins were healthy. Every year they were healthy made silence easier.”
“And when they got leukemia?”
“I thought about it immediately.”
There.
Lawson’s voice dropped.
“Then why the hell did you treat them without testing?”
Franklin looked devastated.
“I did test them.”
Elena stopped.
“What?”
“Four months ago. Standard germline cancer panel and inherited marrow-failure panel.”
“And?”
“Negative.”
Silence.
Lawson looked at Elena.
She looked confused.
Franklin opened tablet.
“Both twins tested negative for known pathogenic variants on the panel we used.”
Dr. Feld’s earlier warning returned:
old report is not diagnosis.
Lawson’s anger shifted.
“So Elena is wrong.”
Franklin shook head.
“Not necessarily.”
Good.
“Explain.”
“The old report used a screening platform no longer used. The gene notation is incomplete. It could refer to a variant not captured or not classified on our current panel. It could be false. It could reflect mosaicism. It could even be a sample mix-up.”
Elena said:
“Then why hide it?”
Exactly.
Franklin looked.
“Because my father had something to hide.”
There.
Not necessarily disease.
Something.
“What?” Lawson asked.
“I don’t know.”
Good.
He wanted certainty.
None.
Franklin continued.
“The twins’ leukemia is real. Their marrow is failing partly because of disease and partly because treatment has been brutal. Whether an inherited repair disorder is contributing is still a question.”
Good.
Medical nuance.
Lawson said:
“You told me ten days.”
“I did.”
“Was that honest?”
“Yes.”
Good.
No villain doctor faking prognosis.
Lawson looked away.
Important.
Franklin was cowardly.
Maybe complicit.
But he had treated children genuinely.
Then Elena asked:
“Why did you recognize me?”
Franklin stared.
“Because I looked for you after Genevieve died.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
“To ask what she gave you.”
There.
Elena’s face drained.
“You called?”
“No.”
“What did you do?”
“I hired an investigator.”
Lawson looked at Prescott.
Prescott looked offended on professional grounds.
Franklin said:
“He found your Chicago address. Then you moved.”
“Someone broke in.”
“I did not order that.”
Good.
“Who was investigator?”
“Dean Harrow.”
Prescott’s face changed.
Lawson noticed.
“You know him.”
Prescott said:
“He worked contract security for Raymond Yates.”
There.
Franklin stopped.
“No.”
“Yes.”
Prescott pulled phone.
“Dean Harrow died last year.”
“How?”
“Car accident.”
Of course.
Maybe coincidence.
No assumptions.
Lawson said:
“Keep going.”
Franklin looked at Elena.
“I hired Harrow to find you because Genevieve said she had given copies to a records coordinator. I wanted to know what my father had hidden.”
“And Harrow may have broken into my apartment.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Did you ask where he got my address?”
“No.”
Good.
Another failure.
Elena stepped back.
Lawson asked:
“Genevieve’s crash.”
Franklin closed eyes.
“I don’t know who killed her.”
“You just implied she was killed.”
“I believe the crash was not accidental.”
There.
“Why?”
“She called me forty minutes before.”
Lawson’s world narrowed.
“What did she say?”
Franklin’s voice shook.
“She said she had proof my father had altered embryo records for more than one patient.”
Silence.
Not just twins.
“She said she was meeting someone from Northshore’s old lab staff.”
“Who?”
“She didn’t say.”
“Where?”
“Near Milwaukee.”
The crash happened on highway toward Milwaukee.
Good.
“She said if she didn’t call me by midnight, I should take a file to you.”
Lawson stared.
“What file?”
Franklin looked broken.
“I never got it.”
“What?”
“She told me she had left it in my hospital mailbox.”
“Was it there?”
“No.”
There.
Someone intercepted.
“What did you do after she died?”
“I went to my father.”
Of course.
“What did he say?”
“That Genevieve had become obsessed and reckless.”
“And you believed him again.”
“No.”
Good.
“For the first time, no.”
There.
“So?”
“I copied his private office access logs.”
Elena looked.
“You have them?”
“No.”
Franklin’s jaw tightened.
“I hid them.”
Good.
“Where?”
“My mother’s storage unit.”
Prescott already typing.
Lawson raised hand.
“Do not send our men.”
Prescott stopped.
Good.
“Police?”
Franklin looked alarmed.
Lawson almost laughed.
“This is what Genevieve meant.”
He walked to desk.
Picked up phone.
Called outside criminal attorney.
Then independent doctor.
Separate tracks.
Good.
Dr. Miriam Feld arrived at the estate before seven.
She insisted on examining twins with Franklin present.
Lawson wanted him out.
She said:
“He knows their treatment course. I need information, not your feelings.”
Good.
Everyone.
They entered private medical suite.
Jonah slept.
Blythe awake.
She looked at Elena.
“Who are you?”
Elena froze.
Lawson said:
“A friend of your mother’s.”
Blythe’s eyes widened.
“You knew Mommy?”
Elena swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Did she sing bad?”
Elena laughed through tears.
“Terribly.”
Blythe smiled.
First time Lawson had seen in days.
It nearly destroyed him.
Good.
Dr. Feld examined records.
She requested urgent chromosomal fragility testing, expanded sequencing, and review of archived newborn samples if available.
No promises.
Good.
Franklin cooperated.
He looked exhausted.
Then Dr. Feld said:
“We also need transplant team to reassess conditioning intensity if this disorder remains plausible.”
Lawson said:
“Can they survive transplant?”
She looked.
“I don’t know.”
Good.
“Can they survive without it?”
“That depends on whether we can control leukemia and recover marrow. Right now, options are narrowing.”
No miracle.
Good.
Lawson asked:
“Ten days?”
“Prognosis estimates are not clocks.”
There.
“Could be less. Could be more. We work with what we have.”
Good.
Elena stood at foot of bed.
She had brought report.
That was all.
She had not cured anyone.
Important.
Then Prescott entered quietly.
“Lawson.”
“What?”
“The storage unit.”
Lawson looked.
“We did not send men.”
“I know.”
“Then?”
“Police went with warrant after counsel contacted them.”
Good.
“And?”
“They found Franklin’s box.”
Franklin exhaled.
Then Prescott’s face changed.
“And something else.”
“What?”
“A copy of Genevieve’s death-scene photographs.”
Lawson went cold.
“Why were they there?”
Prescott looked at Franklin.
Franklin shook head.
“I never put them there.”
There.
The box had been opened before police arrived.
Evidence mixed.
Someone had accessed the storage unit.
Prescott continued.
“Unit entry log shows one visit three days ago.”
Franklin stared.
“By who?”
Prescott held up screen.
Electronic access code registered to:
DR. FRANKLIN YATES.
Silence.
Franklin looked at Lawson.
“I was here.”
Yes.
With twins.
Someone cloned or used code.
Or Franklin lied.
Good.
Lawson’s old instinct screamed.
Lock doors.
Separate everyone.
Threaten truth out.
He looked at Genevieve’s necklace around Elena’s neck.
Then at his children behind glass.
He chose differently.
“Police handle the unit.”
Good.
Prescott nodded.
“And Franklin?”
Lawson looked at doctor.
“Stays available to medical team. No one touches him.”
Good.
Franklin breathed.
Not gratitude.
Fear.
Then Elena said:
“Someone knew he was coming here.”
Everyone looked.
The leak.
Outside genetics consult had leaked.
Franklin came.
Storage unit accessed.
Someone inside still communicating.
Lawson turned to Prescott.
“How many people knew Franklin would be at estate?”
Prescott’s face tightened.
“Medical staff. Gate security. Me. You.”
“Anyone else?”
Prescott hesitated.
“Your sister.”
Lawson went still.
“Vivian?”
“She called this morning asking whether Franklin was with the children.”
Lawson’s eyes narrowed.
His sister had helped raise Jonah and Blythe after Genevieve died.
She knew every schedule.
Every weakness.
Every grief.
Prescott added:
“She also sits on the Mercer Family Foundation board with Raymond Yates’s widow.”
There.
Not guilt.
Connection.
Lawson looked toward dark hallway.
He had spent years believing danger came from outside walls.
Genevieve had died trying to prove someone inside respectable rooms could be more dangerous than any gunman.
May you like
Now his children had ten days.
And Lawson’s own sister had just become a question he did not want to ask.
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