Chapter 5

Elijah held the subpoena up to the light, checking for watermarks, for signs of tampering, for anything that might make it less than real. The embossed seal at the top was unmistakable, the date crisp, the names typed in careful block letters.

"A federal subpoena," he said, his voice hollow. "They were going to compel samples from Ava. They were going to test her. They were going to find the marker and —"

"And patent it," Ruth said, her voice flat. "Licence it. Sell it to anyone who wanted a piece of what your great-grandmother carried in her blood. Your father learned about it from a friend inside the committee. He spent the last year of his life keeping that subpoena from being served."

"So he killed Ava?" Elijah's voice rose. "He killed a three-year-old girl?"

Ruth flinched. "No. Elijah, no. Ava died in her sleep. I told you that. The doctors called it natural causes. Your father didn't cause it — he just recognized it. He knew that without Ava's sample, the researchers had nothing. The marker runs through the women, but it only shows up in specific combinations, in specific —" She stopped, pressing her hand to her chest. "He knew the pattern the way a farmer knows a storm. He saw it coming, and he got to Ava's mother first."

"To offer what?"

"Refuge," Ruth said softly. "Your aunt was losing her mind with grief. She signed over custody of Ava's remains — that's the horror of it, Elijah, that he had to collect samples from a three-year-old's body — and in exchange, he promised her that the line would continue. That the marker would live on. That no one would ever take it."

"And he used Avery?"

Ruth shook her head. "Your father had no designs on Avery. Her birth was a surprise to everyone. But when the researchers sent their letter — the one offering to test any child born in the family line, no fees, no obligation — your father saw an opportunity. He needed a matching sample, a living one, to stand in for the test the subpoena had demanded. He needed someone who carried the marker but who would never be tested."

Elijah's stomach turned. "A decoy."

"An anchor," Ruth corrected. "A child whose very existence — whose sample, if they ever obtained one — would prove the marker had diluted, skipped a generation, become unreadable. A child who could be offered as evidence that the bloodline no longer carried what they wanted."