Chapter 7 - The DNA Test
The court arranged the DNA collection that afternoon.
Daniel’s sample was taken in one room.
Lily’s was taken in another.
A court officer observed everything.
No private laboratory.
No envelopes carried home.
No opportunity to switch anything.
The results would take several days.
Until then, the judge granted me temporary physical custody.
Daniel received supervised visitation.
Susan was prohibited from attending those visits.
That part infuriated her.
Daniel appeared more concerned about the DNA.
After the hearing, Chloe called me.
“I heard what happened.”
“How?”
“Daniel called me.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did he want?”
“He asked if I still had Noah’s hospital DNA card.”
I sat upright.
“What DNA card?”
“The hospital collected a cheek swab.”
“Why?”
“Daniel insisted.”
“Did he tell you what it was for?”
“He said he wanted a private paternity test.”
“Did you see the results?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He told me the lab had delayed them.”
I closed my eyes.
“Chloe, I need you to listen carefully.”
I told her about the private test Daniel had presented in court.
She went silent.
Then she said, “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“Daniel took the kit.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
A pattern appeared instantly.
Two babies.
Two DNA samples.
One man desperate to control what every result said.
Mara subpoenaed the private laboratory named on Daniel’s court document.
The response came the next morning.
They had no record of testing Daniel or Lily.
The report was fake.
Victor Shaw withdrew it less than two hours after receiving our motion for sanctions.
He claimed Daniel had obtained the document from an online testing service and believed it was legitimate.
Nobody believed that explanation.
Least of all the judge.
But we still had another question.
What had Daniel done with Noah’s sample?
Chloe searched her apartment.
The original hospital envelope was gone.
So was a small folder containing Noah’s insurance paperwork.
Then she remembered something.
Daniel had taken a photograph of Noah’s birth certificate.
Why?
He had said he needed it to add the baby to a private insurance plan.
He never did.
Chloe agreed to a court-approved paternity test for Noah as well.
Not because she owed me anything.
Because she finally understood Daniel had been manipulating her too.
Two days later Susan appeared at my mother’s house.
She never reached the door.
My mother saw her through the window and called me.
I was upstairs feeding Lily.
By the time I came down, Susan was standing beside her car speaking through the intercom.
“Jennifer, I need five minutes.”
I pressed the button.
“No.”
“This is about Lily.”
“Everything is suddenly about Lily when you want access to me.”
“You don’t understand what Daniel is facing.”
“I understand perfectly.”
“He may lose his career.”
“Yes.”
“He may face criminal charges.”
“Yes.”
“He is your daughter’s father.”
“You spent months trying to prove I was too unstable to raise her.”
“I was protecting him.”
“You were trying to access her money.”
Susan’s face changed.
“That is not true.”
“I have your emails.”
She looked toward my mother’s security camera.
Then she lowered her voice.
“There are things you still do not know.”
“Then tell my attorney.”
“Some things should stay inside a family.”
“You should have thought of that before hiring a private investigator.”
She stepped closer to the gate.
“What if I could make all of this disappear?”
I almost laughed.
“The forged loan?”
“Yes.”
“The debt?”
“Yes.”
“The custody case?”
“Yes.”
“The money Daniel took from his employer?”
Her silence lasted too long.
“You knew about that too.”
Susan looked away.
I felt something shift inside me.
All along, I had imagined Susan helping Daniel because she was a controlling mother who could not accept her son’s failures.
Maybe that was true.
But suddenly I wondered whether Daniel had actually been protecting her too.
“Why did twenty thousand dollars from my house go into your account?”
Susan looked at me again.
For the first time, she seemed afraid.
“That money was repaid.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
She walked back toward her car.
“Talk to Mara.”
“I already am.”
Susan opened her door.
Then she turned.
“Ask her to look at the first transfer from the company.”
“What about it?”
“It didn’t go to Daniel.”
She got into the car.
I stood frozen behind the gate.
Ten minutes later I called Mara.
The forensic accountant checked the records again.
Susan was right.
The first unauthorized transfer from Daniel’s employer had occurred eleven months earlier.
It went into DSR Consulting.
But Daniel had not opened DSR Consulting.
May you like
The incorporation documents carried only one signature.
Susan Reed’s.
