Chapter 4 - LAUREN’S BLOOD
Lauren was alive.
That was the first good news.
A highway patrol officer found her twelve miles outside Denver just before midnight.
She was sitting beside a closed gas station.
Disoriented.
One hand wrapped in a torn scarf.
Her phone gone.
Car abandoned.
She had walked until a driver stopped and called for help.
When doctors stabilized her, Detective Mills interviewed her.
Lauren remembered the house.
Elaine opened the door.
She said Emily was upstairs resting.
Lauren explained the fetal sex discrepancy.
Elaine’s expression changed immediately.
Then Mark arrived through the garage.
He was not supposed to be home.
Lauren asked to speak to me privately.
Mark refused.
She said:
“This concerns the patient.”
Elaine said:
“We are her family.”
Lauren moved toward the hallway.
Mark blocked her.
Then Lauren noticed printed papers on the kitchen island.
Whitmore Legacy Trust forms.
My forged signature.
She picked them up.
Mark grabbed her wrist.
Lauren threatened to call the clinic.
A struggle.
The small black handled knife was already on the counter because Elaine had been preparing food.
Mark picked it up.
Lauren raised her hand.
The blade cut her palm.
Not deeply.
Enough.
Blood on the knife.
Blood on the counter.
Lauren dropped the papers.
Elaine grabbed her phone.
Mark forced Lauren into the mudroom and locked the interior door.
Not a basement dungeon.
A normal room with a second exterior door.
He forgot that.
Lauren escaped through the back.
Ran to her car.
Mark followed.
She drove away.
Two miles later, she realized her phone was gone and her hand was bleeding badly.
She became lightheaded.
She pulled over.
Then she saw Mark’s truck behind her.
She panicked.
Left the car.
Ran through an alley and behind houses.
Mark later denied following.
Traffic cameras showed his truck on the same road.
Not enough alone.
But damaging.
Lauren hid until dark.
That explained her disappearance.
And the blood.
Mark had used the same knife on Lauren.
Then washed it.
Hours later, he used it on me.
Residual blood from the handle or blade transferred to my wounds and the cloth.
The cloth preserved both attacks.
Rachel sat beside me when Mills explained.
“You saved her case too.”
No.
Lauren saved herself.
The cloth simply connected what happened.
Then Lauren said something more important.
She had seen the original trust certification on the kitchen island.
Female fetus.
My fake acknowledgment.
And a second document.
A loan amendment.
Halcyon Capital.
It said if the qualifying female descendant was not born by June 30, Mark’s bridge facility would mature immediately.
My due date was June 18.
They had borrowed against a birth deadline.
Then the anatomy scan six days before the attack had shown male anatomy clearly.
Mark knew his financing story was collapsing.
Elaine knew her voting dream was gone.
What did they do?
They blamed me.
Not because biology made sense.
Because control never needs logic.
Then Lauren remembered Elaine shouting at Mark that morning.
“You promised me the report was right.”
Mark:
“It was the only way to keep Halcyon open.”
Elaine:
“Then fix it.”
Fix what?
The pregnancy?
The loan?
The trust filing?
Lauren did not know.
May you like
Neither did I.
Continue to the next part: Lauren reveals Elaine knew the “female fetus” report was false before Emily was attacked and demanded that Mark “fix it” before his lender discovered the truth.
