“Kirsten,” Kenneth said carefully, “do you recognize this number?”
I shook my head.
My thumb hovered over the screen, but I did not type. My hands, the hands that could start an IV in a moving emergency bay and steady a panicked parent with one touch, suddenly felt disconnected from me.
Set B.
There had been enough grief in believing there were no embryos left. Enough pain in thinking every possible future had ended behind clinic doors and failed phone calls.
But this message suggested something else.
Not just theft.
A system.
A sequence.
Set A. Set B.
More than one hidden truth.
Kenneth gently took the phone when I offered it. “We need to preserve this.”
“I know.”
“Don’t reply yet.”
“I know.”
But knowing was not the same as breathing.
I sat down slowly. My coffee had gone cold beside the filing summary. Across the desk, Dana Morales’s photo stared up at me with polite, frozen professionalism.
