Chapter 10 - THE WOMAN WHO LEFT NO ADDRESS
Hana Salcedo had lived in four cities in two years, and she had become very good at leaving before anyone learned her son's name. The first move followed a threatening letter. The second came after a stranger began appearing near the playground where she took Leo. By the third, she had stopped trusting anyone who claimed to represent a medical institution.
When a neutral patient advocate contacted her through a legal-aid organization in Portugal, she refused the call. She ignored the second message, too. On the third day, she read the letter from Evelyn Ward and cried so hard that her son abandoned his picture book to sit beside her.
The letter said only that Evelyn had been treated at the same clinic and that investigators believed several women might have received embryos without informed consent. It included no demands, no accusations about Hana's family, and a number for independent legal support. Evelyn wrote that a person could want answers and still protect the ordinary life she'd worked to build.
Hana called the number after Leo fell asleep.
"I thought I was the only one," she said.
Simone arranged to meet her with a Portuguese family advocate, and Evelyn attended remotely only after Hana requested it. For the first ten minutes, Hana said almost nothing. Then she held a folder up to her webcam. Inside were clinic invoices, a rejected complaint, and a letter threatening legal action if she publicly questioned the clinic's procedures.
"They said I misunderstood what I agreed to," Hana explained. "I was alone. I was working for a family in Bern, and my contract ended while I was pregnant. Keller promised low-cost treatment. Then my son was born and a woman from the clinic told me the arrangement required an additional assessment before I could take him home."
"Did you sign anything?" Evelyn asked.
"I refused. I held Leo and wouldn't let them take him. Renata came the next day. She offered money if I left Switzerland and never spoke about the clinic. When I threatened to report them, she said powerful people could make sure I never had custody of my child."
Evelyn felt cold. "Did she say why?"
Hana's eyes moved toward the bedroom door. "She said Leo belonged to a family that had invested heavily in his future. That's how she talked about my baby. Like he was a house they owned."
Evelyn sat completely still. She had been told her child was dead. Hana had kept her son, but the price had been years spent looking over her shoulder. They had different wounds made by the same hands.
"He's safe with you now?" Evelyn asked.
"Yes. He calls every dog a horse and refuses to eat peas. We are safe today. I just want to know whether that will stay true."
Simone explained the independent counsel available to Hana and emphasized that she did not have to disclose her location to Victor. When Hana finally agreed to a test, it was processed through her own legal team. The result confirmed what the clinic's coded file had suggested: Leo was genetically related to Victor and Isabella.
Victor learned the result from Marcus, not from Hana directly. He wrote her one letter, offering support and assuring her that he would respect her choices regarding contact. He did not ask for a picture of Leo. He did not send toys. He understood that appearing generous could still feel like an invasion if the person receiving the gift had never asked for it.
Evelyn, meanwhile, was furious. She wanted to confront Renata, demand an explanation, and show the woman every frightened night she'd stolen from people she'd never met. Jade advised her to preserve her testimony for the ongoing investigation.
"I'm tired of being patient," Evelyn snapped.
"Then be impatient with me," Jade replied. "Shout in this office. Break a pencil. But don't hand someone who destroyed records the chance to say you threatened her."
Evelyn broke two pencils. Afterward, she apologized and helped Jade sharpen the replacements.
The investigation gained momentum when Hana's attorney produced the original relocation agreement. Renata had signed it personally, using a foundation account rather than a clinic account. Unlike the forged forms in Evelyn's file, Hana's agreement contained an explicit warning that she could face "recovery action" if she violated its secrecy provisions. The phrase sounded financial. In Hana's memory, it had always meant Leo.
Swiss investigators requested cooperation from authorities in the relevant jurisdictions. The foundation's independent committee suspended Renata's access to its accounts pending review. Charles Mercer protested that the move was premature, then resigned from the investigative subcommittee when other directors requested records of his own approvals.
On Sunday morning, Evelyn arrived at Victor's townhouse to discover Sophie wearing mismatched socks and a plastic crown. Victor stood at the kitchen counter, helpless before a bowl of pancake batter that had achieved the consistency of cement.
"We made a castle," Sophie announced.
"I can see that," Evelyn said, laughing. "Is it edible?"
Victor inspected the bowl. "That depends how strongly you believe in castles."
For one beautiful hour, there were no missing files. Sophie dumped too many blueberries into the batter. Victor burned the first pancake and defended it as a European variation. Evelyn caught herself reaching across the counter to straighten the collar of his shirt and pulled her hand away, startled by the intimacy of the gesture.
Victor noticed but didn't comment. He simply passed her the spatula.
Later, while Sophie napped, Evelyn told him about Hana. She didn't share private details the woman had asked her to keep. She described the exhaustion of being afraid that someone's money could reach inside your home and rearrange your life.
"My father made people feel like refusing him was dangerous," Victor said. "I grew up thinking that was what authority looked like."
"And now?"
"Now I'm discovering that authority is sometimes letting another person shut the door."
Evelyn studied him for a long moment. She had seen the public version of Victor Hale in magazines and the frightened father at the restaurant. The man quietly washing blueberry batter from his daughter's plastic crown was someone else entirely.
Before she left, Sophie ran after her with a drawing. Three figures stood beneath a purple sun. One was tall and black-haired. One wore a white apron. The smallest held both their hands.
"My people," Sophie said.
Evelyn carried the drawing home carefully, as though it might tear if she breathed too hard. For the first time, she let herself imagine a future beyond the investigation. Then Jade called with news that would force everyone back into the past.
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An anonymous source had offered a tabloid photographs of Sophie's medical records. The asking price was a hundred thousand dollars. Someone wasn't merely hiding Project EOS anymore.
Someone was trying to turn its victims into a spectacle.
