Chapter 15 - The Man Catherine Married
I stopped breathing.
MATERNAL IDENTITY REVIEW.
SUBJECT: LOGAN DAVID WINTERS.
KNOWN MOTHER: CATHERINE WINTERS.
STATUS: RECORD INCONSISTENCY.
"No."
David moved closer.
"Catherine—"
"No."
I had carried Logan for thirty-eight weeks.
I had vomited every morning for four months.
I had felt him kick under my ribs.
I had delivered him after twenty-one hours of labor.
No database could tell me I was not his mother.
Nathan read over my shoulder.
"It's not saying you aren't."
"Then what is it saying?"
He scrolled.
Cord sample mislabeled.
Maternal blood sample substituted.
Hospital chain-of-custody failure.
Dr. Morales.
Vale.
Someone had manipulated the samples after Logan's birth.
"So the paternity result could be fake," David said.
Hope hit too fast.
Nathan shook his head.
"Could be. Or only one sample was altered."
I hated him for being careful.
I also needed him to be.
Internal Affairs brought Vale into an interview room.
I went in before anyone could stop me.
David came with me.
Vale sat cuffed to the table.
He smiled when he saw us.
"Finally."
I put the printout in front of him.
"Whose son is Logan?"
Vale looked at David.
Then at me.
"You want the biological answer or the useful one?"
David lunged.
Agents held him back.
Vale laughed.
I leaned over the table.
"You get one chance."
He looked at me for a long time.
Then said:
"David is his father."
My knees weakened.
"The test says—"
"The test was designed to say Romano."
"Why?"
"Leverage."
"Against who?"
Vale smiled.
"Alessandro."
The room went quiet.
"You wanted him to think Logan was family."
"Eventually."
"Why?"
"Because men like Romano protect blood before truth."
Alessandro had almost died protecting us.
I felt sick.
David said, "Phase II."
Vale's smile faded.
"You weren't supposed to find that."
Internal Affairs recovered enough evidence to charge him with conspiracy, attempted murder, fraud, witness tampering, and theft.
Denise took a deal.
Nathan admitted his role and agreed to testify.
Alessandro handed over records from his side of the financial network.
My mother entered federal protection again, this time without pretending to die.
David's legal death was reversed.
That did not reverse two years.
He came home.
He slept in the guest room.
Logan called him Daddy by the third day.
I did not call him anything for a while.
Then, six weeks later, Internal Affairs sent me one recovered folder.
WINTERS — PHASE II — ORIGINAL.
David had never seen it.
Neither had Alessandro.
We opened it together.
The first page was Logan's real paternity test.
DAVID WINTERS — 99.99%.
David closed his eyes.
I sat down.
For the first time in weeks, something inside me unclenched.
Then I turned the page.
Photographs.
Newborn Logan.
Me asleep in the hospital bed.
Vale in the hallway.
Dr. Morales.
And another man.
Alessandro Romano.
Younger.
Standing outside my room.
I looked at him on the photograph.
"He said he never knew Morales."
David's face tightened.
Under the photo was a handwritten note.
ROMANO CONTACT ESTABLISHED PRIOR TO SHOOTING.
Another line beneath it.
DAVID WINTERS NOT INFORMED.
I called Alessandro.
He answered on the second ring.
"Catherine."
"Why were you outside my hospital room the night Logan was born?"
Silence.
Long enough.
"Alessandro."
His voice changed.
"Because David asked me to be there."
David stood so fast the chair fell backward.
"I did what?"
Alessandro went silent again.
Then:
"David, you don't remember?"
My husband stared at the phone.
Alessandro whispered:
"You were already working for me before Logan was born."
David's face drained.
May you like
And I realized the last lie might not belong to Vale at all.
CUT.
