PART 4
“There were eight embryos, Lucía.”
Diego’s voice cut through the room.
“And Alba was only the first child we found.”
I stared at him, unable to breathe.
Beside me, the little girl tightened her arms around the red toy rabbit. She had my eyes, my birthmark and the same slight dimple that appeared in my left cheek whenever I tried not to cry.
But she was holding Sara’s hand.
Sara was the woman who had carried her, given birth to her, stayed awake through her fevers and comforted her after nightmares.
I might have given Alba the cells that formed her body, but Sara was her mother.
Diego seemed to enjoy watching the realization tear through both of us.
“What do you mean, the first child?” I asked.
He tilted his head.
“You heard me.”
The policewoman stepped between us.
She was tall, with dark hair pulled into a tight bun and a badge attached to her belt.
“Dr. López, you will remain silent until we determine exactly what happened here.”
Diego smiled.
“You cannot arrest me because my wife regrets a medical decision.”
“This is not about regret,” Dr. Morales said. “The records indicate she was sedated before the consent video.”
“The dosage was minimal.”
“You performed an egg retrieval and permanent sterilization without valid consent.”
“You are interpreting incomplete documents.”
Elena Ruiz hugged the folder against her chest.
“They are not incomplete,” she said. “I copied everything.”
Diego’s eyes turned toward her.
The hatred in his expression was so sudden that Elena stepped backward.
The policewoman noticed.
“Take him outside,” she ordered the security officers.
One officer reached for Diego’s arm.
He pulled away.
“I know how this will end,” he said. “The clinic will deny everything. The records will be questioned. Elena will be called an unstable former employee. Álvaro will be described as a disgraced doctor seeking revenge.”
Then he looked at me.
“And you will come home.”
“I would rather sleep on the street.”
His smile disappeared.
“You don’t know what is waiting outside this room.”
“Neither do you.”
“I know more than you think.”
The officers escorted him into the corridor.
As he passed Sara and Alba, he looked down at the child.
Alba hid behind her mother.
Diego’s gaze remained on her for several seconds.
It was not the gaze of a doctor studying a patient.
It was recognition.
“You’ve seen her before,” I said.
He stopped.
The officers tried to move him, but he turned his head toward me.
“I have seen all of them.”
Then they pulled him away.
The moment he disappeared, Alba began to cry.
Sara knelt and wrapped both arms around her.
“It’s all right, sweetheart. You’re safe.”
“Is the angry man my doctor?”
“No.”
“Is he her husband?”
Sara glanced at me.
“Yes.”
Alba looked up with tears on her cheeks.
“Then why does he hate her?”
The innocence of the question broke me.
I sank to my knees a few feet away.
“He doesn’t hate me,” I said, though I no longer knew whether that was true. “He is angry because people discovered that he did something very wrong.”
Her green eyes searched mine.
“Are you really my other mommy?”
Sara’s face tightened with fear.
Not fear of me.
Fear that one sentence could take her daughter away.
I reached toward Alba, then stopped before touching her.
“No,” I said gently. “You have one mother, and she is holding you right now.”
Sara’s eyes filled with tears.
“But you look like me,” Alba whispered.
“We may be connected,” I told her. “But that does not change who your mother is.”
Alba thought about this seriously.
Then she extended the red rabbit toward me.
“You can hold Rosa if you’re scared.”
My throat closed.
I accepted the toy with trembling hands.
“Thank you.”
The policewoman returned.
“My name is Inspector Carmen Vega,” she said. “Dr. López is being detained while we review the evidence. I need everyone who was involved to remain available for questioning.”
“Detained?” I asked. “Not arrested?”
“We need the documents authenticated. We also need confirmation that the procedures occurred as these records indicate.”
“You saw the medication timeline.”
“I did. But his lawyer will challenge every page.”
Elena opened the folder again.
“There is something else.”
She removed a sheet covered with numbers and handwritten initials.
“At Santa Isabel, every embryo was assigned a laboratory code,” she explained. “This is a transfer ledger.”
Inspector Vega accepted the page.
“Can it tell us where Lucía’s embryos went?”
“Yes.”
Elena pointed toward a code.
LM-218.
“My initials,” I whispered.
Elena nodded.
“The number refers to the retrieval cycle.”
Below the code were eight separate entries.
Each contained a date, a patient number and a result.
My eyes moved down the page.
Transfer one: negative.
Transfer two: miscarriage.
Transfer three: live birth.
Transfer four: live birth.
Transfer five: unknown.
Transfer six: live birth.
Transfer seven: live birth.
Transfer eight: transferred from storage four years later. Result unknown.
Four confirmed births.
Possibly six surviving children.
My children.
No.
Not mine.
Children created from my body without my consent, then placed into the lives of strangers.
I felt as if the room had divided into two realities.
In one, I was Lucía Martín, a woman who had spent years failing to become pregnant.
In the other, pieces of me had been growing in homes across Spain while I injected hormones into my stomach and apologized to the man who had made motherhood impossible.
“Where are the patients’ names?” I asked.
“The ledger only contains identification numbers,” Elena said. “The matching index was kept separately.”
“Do you have it?”
She hesitated.
“I copied part of it.”
“Part?”
“Diego discovered me in the archive before I could finish.”
Inspector Vega looked up sharply.
“What happened?”
“He threatened me.”
“With what?”
Elena pressed her lips together.
“My husband was ill. His treatment was being paid through a private assistance program connected to the clinic. Diego told me that if I reported anything, the payments would stop.”
“Did they?”
“Yes.”
Her voice weakened.
“My husband died seven months later.”
The room went silent.
“I am sorry,” I said.
Elena shook her head.
“I told myself I had no choice. But the truth is, I was afraid. After my husband died, I should have gone to the police. Instead, I hid the records in my apartment and tried to forget.”
“What changed today?” Inspector Vega asked.
Elena looked toward the hallway where Diego had disappeared.
“Someone called me this morning.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. The voice was electronically altered.”
“What did they say?”
“That Lucía had an appointment at the public hospital. They told me Dr. Serrano would discover the implants and that I had one chance to correct what I had done.”
Dr. Serrano frowned.
“How did the caller know Lucía was coming to me?”
“I asked the same question. They hung up.”
Inspector Vega turned to Sara.
“You also received an anonymous message?”
“Yes.”
“At what time?”
“Seven fourteen this morning.”
Elena’s eyes widened.
“My call came at seven ten.”
Someone had coordinated everything.
My appointment.
Elena’s arrival.
Sara’s DNA results.
Even Diego’s appearance at the hospital.
“What time did Diego first call me?” I asked.
I picked up my phone.
The first missed call was at 10:26 a.m.
But beneath it was something I had not noticed earlier.
At 7:02, Diego had sent me a message.
Don’t forget your appointment with Serrano.
My skin went cold.
I had never told him Dr. Serrano’s name.
I showed the message to Inspector Vega.
“He knew,” I whispered.
Dr. Serrano took the phone from my hand.
“Did he recommend this hospital?”
“He told me to choose someone from the public system.”
“But did he suggest a specific department?”
“No.”
“A particular day?”
I thought back.
Two weeks earlier, I had complained that every hospital seemed fully booked.
Diego had taken my phone and opened the appointment application.
“Try Tuesday morning,” he had said. “Cancellations usually appear then.”
He had stood beside me while I refreshed the screen.
Dr. Serrano’s name appeared.
Diego had tapped it before I could read the other options.
I had forgotten that detail because it seemed unimportant.
“He chose you,” I said.
Álvaro’s face hardened.
“Then this was not an accident.”
“Why would he send me to the one doctor who might recognize what he had done?”
No one answered.
Unless Diego had wanted the truth discovered.
But why?
Inspector Vega photographed the ledger and handed it back to Elena.
“We need the patient index.”
Elena removed four handwritten cards from the folder.
“I only copied these.”
Each card matched one of the successful transfers.
The first contained Sara’s patient number.
The second belonged to a woman named Irene Montalvo, from Toledo.
The third listed Paula Estévez, last known address in Valencia.
The fourth made my heart stop.
Marta Salas Ortega.
I knew that name.
Marta had worked with Diego for nearly eight years.
She managed appointments, accounts and patient records at his clinic. She had been at our home countless times, carrying documents or discussing emergencies.
She was beautiful, efficient and always composed.
Whenever I called Diego during work hours, Marta was usually the one who answered.
“Dr. López is in a procedure.”
“Dr. López is speaking with a patient.”
“Dr. López will call you when he is free.”
Two years earlier, Marta had taken several months away from work.
Diego told me she had gone to care for her sick mother in Seville.
When she returned, she looked exhausted and had gained weight.
I had assumed it was stress.
There had also been a photograph on her desk.
A baby boy sleeping under a blue blanket.
When I asked about him, she said he was her nephew.
“Marta has a child,” I whispered.
Inspector Vega looked at me.
“How old?”
“I don’t know. Three or four.”
Elena checked the date beside Marta’s transfer number.
“The embryo was removed from storage four years after the original retrieval.”
Four years after Diego stole my eggs.
That meant the child would now be around two.
But the baby in the photograph had appeared almost two years ago.
The timing matched.
I called Marta.
The phone rang once.
Then the line disconnected.
I tried again.
This time, the number was unavailable.
Inspector Vega spoke into her radio.
“Send a unit to Clínica López Navarro. Locate Marta Salas Ortega and secure all electronic records before anyone removes them.”
A young officer appeared at the door.
“Inspector, Dr. López’s lawyer has arrived.”
“That was fast.”
“He says he was contacted before Dr. López entered the hospital.”
Inspector Vega’s eyes narrowed.
“Diego called a lawyer before confronting us?” I asked.
The officer nodded.
“He also gave the lawyer a sealed document and instructed him to release it if he was arrested.”
“What document?”
“The lawyer refuses to say.”
Inspector Vega left the room.
I stared at Marta’s name.
Memories began rearranging themselves.
Marta bringing Diego coffee exactly the way he liked it.
Marta attending the clinic’s Christmas dinner in a dress he had once suggested I buy.
Marta standing beside me after another failed fertility treatment, squeezing my hand and saying, “Sometimes life gives children to the women who are meant to have them.”
At the time, I thought she was comforting me.
Now I wondered whether she had already been carrying a child created from my egg.
“Did Diego have a relationship with her?” Sara asked quietly.
“I don’t know.”
But the answer was already forming inside me.
Dr. Serrano studied Marta’s card.
“There is a second code.”
Elena leaned closer.
“That is the fertilization source.”
“What does that mean?”
“It identifies the sperm sample.”
Every embryo had been created from my egg and someone’s sperm.
Until that moment, I had been so overwhelmed by what happened to my body that I had not asked the obvious question.
“Who was the father?”
Elena looked through the papers.
“The donor codes were recorded in the embryology file, not the transfer ledger.”
“Do you have that file?”
“No.”
Dr. Serrano glanced toward Sara.
“Did your DNA test identify Alba’s biological father?”
Sara shook her head.
“It only compared Alba’s sample with information from the message. The sender gave the laboratory a reference profile.”
“My profile?”
“I don’t know how they obtained it.”
My blood went cold.
Someone had access to my DNA.
Someone had known exactly where to send it.
Before I could ask another question, Sara’s phone rang.
She looked at the screen.
“Unknown number.”
Inspector Vega was still outside.
Dr. Morales told Sara to answer on speaker.
Sara pressed the button.
“Hello?”
At first, there was only breathing.
Then a woman whispered, “Is Lucía there?”
I recognized the voice immediately.
“Marta?”
A sob came through the speaker.
“Lucía, I am sorry.”
My grip tightened around the red rabbit.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Is your son mine?”
Marta began crying harder.
“I didn’t know at first.”
“That is not an answer.”
“Diego told me the embryo came from an anonymous donor. He said you had agreed to donate your eggs after deciding you never wanted children.”
“I spent five years trying to become pregnant, and you knew it.”
“I learned the truth later.”
“When?”
Silence.
“When, Marta?”
“After Mateo was born.”
Mateo.
The baby boy in the photograph.
“You let me come into the clinic and talk about my fertility treatments while you were raising a child created from my body.”
“I was afraid.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Diego controlled everything. My salary, my apartment, Mateo’s medical care. When I threatened to tell you, he said he would prove I had stolen the embryo.”
“Did you send the messages this morning?”
“Yes.”
The room became completely still.
“You contacted Sara and Elena?”
“Yes.”
“Why today?”
“Because Diego knew Dr. Serrano would identify the implants.”
“How?”
“He arranged your appointment.”
“Why?”
Marta’s breathing became uneven.
“He needed Álvaro to find them.”
Dr. Serrano stepped toward the phone.
“Why would Diego want that?”
“Because the police were already investigating the clinic.”
Inspector Vega reentered the room just as Marta spoke.
“What investigation?” she demanded.
“Three weeks ago, a former patient reported that her child’s DNA did not match the donor records. Diego knew the laboratory files would eventually be examined.”
“So he sent Lucía here to create a different explanation?” Inspector Vega asked.
“He wanted to blame Álvaro.”
Dr. Serrano closed his eyes.
The forged witness signature.
The photographs.
The old complaint.
Diego had built everything so that if the truth emerged, Álvaro would appear responsible.
“But why contact the other women?” I asked.
“I did that,” Marta said. “I copied the files before Diego could destroy them.”
“Where are the copies?”
“I sent them to someone I trusted.”
“Who?”
Before she could answer, a loud crash sounded through the phone.
Marta screamed.
The line became muffled.
“Marta?” I shouted.
A man’s voice spoke in the background.
“You should have kept quiet.”
It was not Diego.
He was still being held in the hospital.
Marta gasped.
“Please, don’t take him.”
A child began crying.
“Mama!”
“Mateo!” she screamed.
There was another crash.
Then the call ended.
Inspector Vega immediately issued orders through her radio.
“Trace that call. Send units to Marta Salas’s apartment, the clinic and every registered address connected to her.”
I stood frozen.
“Someone has her son.”
Inspector Vega looked at me.
“We don’t know that yet.”
“We heard him.”
“We also don’t know who was inside the room.”
A message arrived on my phone.
No number appeared.
Only an image.
It showed a small boy sitting in the back seat of a car. His cheeks were wet with tears, and a strip of silver tape covered his mouth.
Around his neck hung a card.
MATEO SALAS — EMBRYO LM-218-8
My knees buckled.
Dr. Serrano caught me before I hit the floor.
Beneath the image was a message.
One child for one file. Bring Elena’s originals to the underground parking level at Clínica Santa Isabel. Come alone.
Inspector Vega read it over my shoulder.
“You are not going anywhere alone.”
“If we do not bring the file, they will hurt him.”
“We will handle this.”
“You don’t even know where he is.”
“We know where they want you to go.”
“That child may be biologically connected to me.”
“And walking into a trap will not save him.”
Another message arrived.
This one was a video.
Mateo was crying in the same car. A gloved hand held his chin toward the camera.
Then the person behind the camera spoke.
“You have ninety minutes, Lucía.”
The voice had been altered electronically.
Just like the voice that called Elena.
The video ended with a view through the car window.
For less than a second, I saw a red brick building and part of a pharmacy sign.
Inspector Vega took my phone and sent the video to her team.
“We can identify the location.”
But Sara was staring at the frozen final frame.
“I know that pharmacy.”
“Where is it?”
“Near Alba’s school.”
Her face turned white.
She grabbed her daughter and pulled her close.
The anonymous sender had known where Alba lived.
They had known where Mateo lived.
They had known my appointment, Elena’s secret files and Sara’s DNA results.
This was not only Diego’s crime.
It was an entire network.
Dr. Morales led Sara and Alba into a secure room with a police officer.
Elena sat down, trembling.
“I should never have brought the originals.”
“No,” I said. “You did the right thing.”
“You don’t understand. There is one page I did not show you.”
She opened the folder and removed the cardboard backing.
A thin sheet had been hidden inside.
It contained a table of embryo codes and fertilization sources.
“After I saw Marta’s name, I remembered where I had hidden this.”
My eyes searched for LM-218.
There were eight embryo numbers.
Beside the first seven was the same sperm-source code.
DN-044.
Beside the final embryo—the one transferred to Marta—was a different code.
DLN-001.
“DLN,” I whispered.
Diego López Navarro.
Mateo had been created from my egg and my husband’s sperm.
Biologically, he was the child Diego and I had supposedly been unable to have.
Diego had stolen our child and placed him inside another woman.
I pressed my fist against my mouth, but the scream escaped anyway.
Álvaro looked at the remaining code.
“Who is DN-044?”
Elena shook her head.
“I don’t know. It may be an anonymous donor number.”
Inspector Vega photographed the page.
“We will compare it against the clinic database.”
A police officer rushed into the room.
“Inspector, the team at the clinic found a hidden server.”
“Is the donor registry there?”
“We’re still reviewing it, but there is something you should see.”
He handed her a tablet.
The screen displayed an old database.
A list of donor profiles appeared.
Inspector Vega entered the code DN-044.
A record opened.
Most fields had been deleted.
But one line remained.
Source collection date: 14 September, twelve years ago.
Institution: Santa Isabel Residency Fertility Study.
Dr. Serrano stopped breathing.
“What is it?” I asked.
He took the tablet.
His hands began to shake.
“Twelve years ago, residents at Santa Isabel were asked to provide samples for a fertility research project.”
“You participated?”
“Yes.”
Inspector Vega scrolled down.
A scanned form appeared.
At the bottom was the donor’s name.
Álvaro Serrano Vidal.
I stared at the screen.
Then at Álvaro.
“No,” he whispered. “Those samples were supposed to be destroyed.”
The room became silent.
Seven embryos.
Seven possible children.
All created from my eggs.
And Álvaro’s sperm.
Sara stood in the doorway.
She had returned without Alba, who remained with the officer.
Her eyes were filled with tears.
“Then Alba…”
Álvaro looked at her.
He could not finish the sentence.
Inspector Vega’s phone rang.
She answered, listened and turned toward us.
“The laboratory has completed an emergency comparison using the DNA profile submitted with Sara’s test.”
She looked at Álvaro.
“The paternal match is confirmed.”
My body went numb.
Alba was not only biologically connected to me.
She was Álvaro’s biological daughter.
Diego had stolen my eggs and secretly used the genetic material of the man he hated most.
“Why would he do that?” I whispered.
Álvaro stared at the photograph of Alba.
“To punish me.”
“No,” Elena said.
We all turned toward her.
She had found a handwritten note beside the donor code.
Three words appeared in Diego’s handwriting:
Compatible with Lucía.
“What does that mean?” Inspector Vega asked.
Elena’s face had gone pale.
“It means Diego did not choose Álvaro randomly.”
The officer holding the tablet scrolled farther.
A medical icon appeared beside my name.
He opened it.
A genetic compatibility report filled the screen.
Dr. Morales read the conclusion.
Then she covered her mouth.
“What?” I demanded.
She looked at me with horror.
“Lucía, Diego did not sterilize you because you carried a dangerous hereditary condition.”
“I know that.”
“No. You don’t understand.”
She turned the tablet toward me.
The report showed that I carried a rare recessive gene.
It would only affect a child if the biological father carried the same mutation.
Beside Diego’s name was a red warning symbol.
Positive carrier.
Beside Álvaro’s name was a green mark.
Negative.
Dr. Morales spoke carefully.
“If you and Diego had conceived naturally, there was a significant chance your child would inherit the disorder.”
I stared at the code connected to Mateo.
The only embryo created with Diego’s sperm.
“What disorder?”
No one answered.
“What disorder does Mateo have?”
Inspector Vega’s phone rang again.
This time, she placed it on speaker.
A police officer’s voice filled the room.
“We found Marta Salas at her apartment. She is alive, but injured.”
“And Mateo?”
“He is missing.”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“Did she see who took him?” Inspector Vega asked.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
There was a pause.
“She says it was a woman.”
“What woman?”
“Marta identified her as Irene Montalvo—the second patient from the transfer ledger.”
Elena looked at the cards.
Irene Montalvo.
The woman in Toledo.
One of the women who had given birth to a child from my stolen embryos.
The officer continued.
“Marta also says Irene kept repeating that Mateo was the only one who could save her son.”
The genetic disorder.
A sick child.
A compatible sibling.
Mateo had not been kidnapped for revenge.
He had been taken for his body.
My phone vibrated again.
A final message appeared.
Do not bring the files. Bring Álvaro Serrano.
Below it was a photograph of two children.
Mateo sat tied to a chair.
Beside him was a thin boy with hollow cheeks, connected to a medical tube.
The boy lifted his face toward the camera.
He had my green eyes.
And Álvaro’s unmistakable smile.
Across the bottom of the image were six words:
ONE BROTHER WILL DIE BEFORE MIDNIGHT……………………………
TO BE CONTINUED IN LAST PART…
