Chapter 6 - The Signature on the Form
The fertility clinic sat in a glass building downtown, surrounded by expensive restaurants and polished office towers. Daniel drove there before the custody hearing because he believed the donor file might explain how Lenora had obtained information that should have been sealed.
Elise remained in the hospital under observation. Detective Sloan assigned an officer to her room, but she refused to let the officer stand inside. My sister had spent her whole life making other people comfortable, and now even danger had to wait politely outside her door.
At the clinic, the administrator brought us into a conference room. Her name was Priya Nanduri, and she kept both hands folded over a stack of records.
“The request was submitted through an authorized medical proxy,” Priya said. “That is why the system did not flag it immediately.”
Daniel’s face tightened. “I never authorized my mother.”
“There is a form signed by you three years ago.”
She slid a copy across the table. It gave Lenora Voss permission to discuss Daniel’s medical records, make scheduling decisions, and receive information about fertility preservation.
Daniel stared at the signature.
“I signed this when I had cancer.”
“You were twenty-six,” I said.
“I was recovering from surgery. My mother said the hospital needed someone to speak for me.”
Priya tapped the page. “The authorization remained active. When Lenora requested the donor file, she used a secondary security question. The answer was the name of your childhood dog.”
“She would know that,” Daniel said.
“So would anyone close to you.”
The administrator opened another file. “There is more. The donor profile you selected was released through a special compatibility program. The program matched donors and recipients according to a rare genetic marker.”
Daniel frowned. “We were told it was routine.”
“It was not routine. Your oncologist requested the match because your treatment history suggested an inherited risk.”
I watched Daniel’s expression shift. “What inherited risk?”
Priya hesitated. “Your records say your family has a history of sudden cardiac events and a metabolic condition that can affect infants. The clinic wanted to minimize the chance of passing on certain markers.”
“My mother never told me that.”
“The records were transferred from St. Agnes Hospital. Some pages are missing.”
Daniel stood and paced to the window. Below us, people hurried along the sidewalks carrying coffee and phones, unaware that an entire family could be rearranged by a missing page.
“Can you tell us who the donor was?” I asked.
“No. The file is sealed.”
“Even if someone is trying to take the baby?”
Priya looked at me. “There is an emergency disclosure process. A judge can order it if the information is medically necessary.”
She handed Daniel a copy of the original authorization. The signature looked real, but the date was wrong. Daniel had been in the hospital on that date, recovering from a procedure that left him unable to hold a pen for two weeks.
“This was altered,” he said.
Priya’s face went pale. “Then Lenora may have accessed the file unlawfully.”
His phone rang. Detective Sloan was calling from the hospital.
“Mara, come back,” she said. “Elise has been served with the custody petition.”
“What happened?”
“Someone walked into her room wearing hospital scrubs and tried to take the baby’s chart.”
Daniel gripped the edge of the table. “Was it my mother?”
“No. The person left before we could identify her.”
Priya suddenly looked at the second page in the file. “Wait.”
She pulled a magnifying glass from a drawer and examined the signature. Her voice dropped.
“This authorization was not altered recently.”
Daniel looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“The ink and paper are old. The signature was created at the time of the original form.”
“Then I signed it.”
“No,” Priya said. “You signed the first page. The second page was attached later.”
She turned the sheet over. A faint impression from the missing page remained on the paper beneath it.
The impression showed a single line of text.
Proxy authority expires upon death of the patient.
Daniel’s eyes fixed on the words.
“Someone removed the page,” Priya said. “And they did it years ago.”
The phone in my pocket buzzed.
May you like
The hidden contact had sent a photograph of Lenora standing beside a woman I had never seen before.
The woman looked exactly like Daniel.
