Chapter 4 - The First Two Children Had NamesThe cellar ledger gave investigators something Lupita had been denied for years.
Destinations.
Her first child had been born six years earlier.
The ledger listed:
INFANT A — HANOVER
Her second:
INFANT B — DUNN
Money followed both names.
Not one payment.
Several.
Donation to Santa Clara.
Donation to an affiliated foundation.
Payment to a medical consultant.
“Pastoral administrative fee.”
That last one went to an account managed by Father Mateo.
Detectives traced the first family to Dallas.
Jonathan and Claire Hanover.
Their daughter was now six.
Her name was Isabella.
The Dunn family lived outside Scottsdale, Arizona.
Their daughter, Mia, was four.
Both couples hired lawyers immediately.
Both claimed they believed they had completed confidential adoptions through a Catholic family-placement ministry.
Neither had court orders matching what investigators would expect from a lawful interstate adoption.
Instead they had elaborate packets containing:
religious affidavits,
medical histories,
private relinquishment forms,
and birth certificates.
Some documents appeared genuine.
Others did not.
Lupita stared at photographs of the children investigators were legally permitted to show her.
Isabella had dark eyes.
Mia had Lupita’s small dimple on the left side.
Or maybe Lupita wanted to see herself there.
“I want them back.”
Her attorney, Maria Delgado, did not offer a comforting lie.
“We need to establish parentage and what legally happened.”
“I gave birth to them.”
“Yes.”
“They stole them.”
“That may be true.”
“Then they’re mine.”
Maria sat beside the hospital bed.
“Emotionally, I understand exactly why you’re saying that. Legally, we still need DNA, birth records, adoption records, and child-welfare evaluations. They are children with lives now.”
Lupita hated her for that sentence.
Then respected her for saying it.
Sofía slept beside her.
Lupita had spent years fantasizing that finding her babies would undo the taking.
Instead, finding them created a new kind of pain.
Isabella and Mia were alive.
That was everything.
They also knew other women as Mom.
That could not be erased simply because the adults around their births had committed crimes.
Then DNA testing returned on Sofía.
Lupita was unquestionably her biological mother.
The father was unknown.
Detective Ortega asked permission to collect DNA from the first two children through court-approved procedures.
Both families initially resisted.
The court ordered testing after investigators presented the trafficking evidence.
If Isabella and Mia were also Lupita’s biological children, the scheme had not merely used her body to carry other couples’ embryos.
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Something else had been done to her.
Something Father Mateo had understood from the beginning.
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