Chapter 1 - The Test That Accused the Wrong Person
Diane Mercer slammed the DNA report onto the coffee table hard enough to send one of the white sample envelopes sliding toward the rug.
“I knew that baby wasn’t really ours.”
Claire instinctively tightened both arms around eight-month-old Olivia.
Late-afternoon sunlight filled Harold and Diane’s living room in Winnetka, Illinois, catching the silver edge of the picture frames lining the fireplace mantel. Every one showed the same family: Harold and Diane, their only son Ethan, then Ethan beside Claire, then Olivia arriving eight months earlier.
Ethan stepped between his wife and mother.
“Then read the whole damn report.”
Diane’s mouth tightened.
She had spent months questioning Olivia’s dark auburn hair, her green eyes, even the slight dimple beneath her lower lip.
Claire had endured it because Ethan kept insisting his mother would eventually stop.
She hadn’t.
Harold snatched up the report.
“Well?” Diane demanded. “Is Ethan the father?”
Harold read the first page.
Then the second.
The anger left his face.
His fingers began trembling.
“Dad?”
Harold said nothing.
Ethan grabbed the pages from him.
The report did confirm that Ethan was Olivia’s biological father.
But another section contained an unexpected kinship result from the additional family samples Diane had submitted.
Ethan read it once.
Then again.
His eyes lifted toward Harold.
“It says I’m not your son…”
Diane stopped breathing.
Ethan looked back at the percentages.
“…but my baby is your blood.”
Nobody moved.
Claire’s face drained.
Harold backed away until the backs of his knees touched an armchair.
Diane stared at her husband.
For the first time since Claire had entered the Mercer family, the older woman looked genuinely afraid.
Ethan looked from Harold to Claire and then down at Olivia.
“Dad.”
Harold shook his head.
“Not here.”
“You’re going to explain this.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
Harold took another step backward.
Diane’s voice came out barely above a whisper.
“Harold… what did you do?”
That question changed everything.
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Because Diane wasn’t looking at Ethan.
She was looking at Claire.
