Chapter 60: The Medical Freeze

The next morning, the phone rang. It wasn't an unknown number. It was the clinic.

"Ms. Sterling?" The voice was professional, chilly. "This is Billing. We have a problem with the insurance authorization for Leo's transfer."

"What problem?" I asked, putting the phone on speaker so Ben could hear. We were in a motel room near the hospital, the curtains drawn against the paparazzi already circling the lobby.

"The policy has been flagged for review," the woman said. "By the trustee."

"The trustee is in police custody," I said. "Or missing. Or dead. Depending on which news channel you're watching."

"The flag was placed manually," she said. "This morning. At 8:00 AM."

I looked at Ben. 8:00 AM. Edith had been gone for hours.

"Who placed it?" I asked.

"The system doesn't say," the woman replied. "But without authorization, we can't process the admission to Mount Sinai. And we can't release the medication."

"He needs that medication," I said, my voice rising. "It's life-saving."

"I understand," she said, sounding like she didn't understand at all. "But until the review is cleared, the account is frozen. You'll have to pay out of pocket."

"How much?"

"For the transfer and the first round of treatment? Two hundred thousand. Upfront."

I hung up.

"She's alive," I said. "And she's not just alive. She's active."

"How?" Ben asked. "Her accounts are frozen. Vance filed the injunction."

"Not all of them," I said. "Mark said she had a ledger. A physical one. If she memorized even one account number... if she has access to even one shell company..."

"She can still pull the strings," Ben finished.

I paced the small room. Leo was safe for now, stable in the hospital, but without the transfer, without the specialized treatment for the Von Willebrand's, he was a ticking clock. And Edith knew it.

"She's squeezing us," I said. "She knows we don't have the cash. She knows we're relying on the Trust."

"So what do we do?" Mark asked from the bed, where he was nursing his ribs. "We can't pay."

"We don't pay," I said. "We find her."

"She could be anywhere," Lucia said. "With that kind of money, she could be in Rio by now."

"She's not in Rio," I said. "She placed the flag at 8:00 AM. That means she's in a time zone where 8:00 AM means business hours. She's close."

I looked at the map on my phone.

"She's not done," I said. "She left the note. *SOON.* She's planning something. Something big."

"Bigger than burning down the estate?" Ben asked.

"The estate was just a building," I said. "The legacy is the bloodline. And she thinks the bloodline is hers."

I looked at Lucia. Then at Mark.

"She wants the set," I whispered. "She has Leo. Or she thinks she can get him back. But she lost me. She lost Mark. She lost you."

"She's going to try to take us," Mark said.

"No," I said. "She's going to try to replace us."

I thought about the nursery. The empty cribs. The obsession with perfection.

"There's one place we haven't checked," I said. "The one place she mentioned in the journals but never explained."

"What place?" Ben asked.

"The Sanctuary," I said.

"The graveyard in Canada?" Lucia asked.

"No," I said. "The journals didn't call it a graveyard. They called it a *facility*."

I pulled the journal from my bag. *Volume 2: The Doctor.*

I flipped to the entry from 1989.

*May 12. Thorne is worried about the facility. He says the remote location makes supply runs difficult. But Edith insists. She says the isolation is necessary for the gestation.*

"Gestation," I said. "Not burial. Gestation."

I looked at them.

"The Sanctuary isn't a cemetery," I said. "It's a farm."

"A farm?" Mark asked.

"A baby farm," I said. "She wasn't just stealing babies, Mark. She was making them."

I looked at the date on the entry. May 1989.

The same month I was born.

"She didn't steal me," I whispered, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. "And she didn't adopt me. She *grew* me."

"That's impossible," Lucia said. "In 1989? The technology..."

"Thorne was a pioneer," I said. "A genius. And a monster. He wasn't just a fertility doctor. He was a geneticist."

I looked at Ben.

"We have to go to Canada," I said. "We have to find The Sanctuary."

"And Leo?" Ben asked.

"Leo stays here," I said. "Under guard. Vance can stall the billing department for a day or two. But we have to end this. We have to cut off the head of the snake."

I grabbed my coat.

"Edith isn't running," I said. "She's recruiting."