Chapter 16 - Face to Face with the Doctor
By dawn, Robert Vance was sitting in our living room, his face grim as granite as he poured over the stolen clinic files with a jeweler’s magnifying glass. Vanessa was asleep on the guest room sofa, sedated by exhaustion and hot tea, guarded by Jason.
"This is attempted murder," Robert said, his usually measured voice trembling with cold fury. "Or at the very least, aggravated battery resulting in catastrophic injury to an infant and mother. Albright didn't just breach medical ethics; he took a six-figure bribe to induce a high-risk premature birth for commercial fraud."
"Can Arthur Pendelton use that affidavit to force a DNA swab on Emma?" I asked, my voice hollow.
"Arthur won't have a law license by noon," Robert answered sharply. "I have already summoned the Massachusetts Bar disciplinary board and filed emergency criminal disclosures with the State Police. But Albright is the linchpin. If he catches wind that Vanessa took these files, he will flee the country. We need his sworn, video-recorded confession before he contacts Evelyn."
Two hours later, Robert and I walked through the double glass doors of St. Jude’s Women’s Center in downtown Boston. The receptionist looked up with a practiced, sterile smile, which instantly vanished when Robert flashed his senior partner credentials and a hand-delivered subpoena signed by a superior court judge.
We bypassed the waiting room and pushed straight into Dr. Albright’s private corner office.
Albright, an aristocratic man with silver hair and gold-rimmed spectacles, looked up from his mahogany desk in annoyance. "What is the meaning of this? You cannot barge into a private practice—"
"Shut the door, Clara," Robert commanded quietly.
I turned the heavy brass latch, sealing the three of us inside.
Robert tossed the stolen accordion folder onto Albright’s blotter. It landed with a heavy, dead thud.
Albright stared at the plastic-wrapped file. Every ounce of color drained from his weathered face, leaving him a ghastly shade of gray. His hand shook as he reached for his desk phone.
"Touch that phone, Kenneth," Robert said with icy precision, "and the state troopers waiting in the lobby will come up these stairs with handcuffs. You have two options. You sit in that chair and give a full, sworn video deposition confirming that Evelyn Holloway coerced and bribed you into forging lab reports and inducing Clara’s labor—or you spend the next fifteen years of your life in Walpole State Prison as a child predator's accomplice."
Albright slumped back into his leather executive chair, looking suddenly twenty years older. "She told me... she told me it was the only way to save the family name," he stammered, his eyes darting frantically toward the door. "She said Clara was unstable... that Sarah’s trust would be lost to public conservators if the baby wasn't born before January first..."
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"You almost killed my daughter," I said, stepping closer to his desk, my voice vibrating with a primal, maternal rage that made the grown man flinch. "You put her in an incubator with underdeveloped lungs for money."
"Clara, please..." Albright choked, burying his face in his hands. "Evelyn... Evelyn has Sarah’s real safe-deposit key. That's why she’s so confident. There is another document. Something Sarah left behind that nobody knows about."
