Chapter 6 - THE CHILD WHO WOULD NOT CALL HIM DAD
The forensic finding changed Blake’s legal position.
Until then, his attorneys had focused on my concealment. Now they requested joint discovery with my counsel concerning Richard’s interference, the threatening photograph, and the modified messages.
Richard responded through corporate counsel.
He denied accessing my phone personally. He argued that executive-security staff routinely monitored company-connected devices during periods of suspected data theft.
The explanation was plausible enough to prevent an immediate conclusion.
It was also an admission that my private messages had been monitored.
Harrington Renewables’ board placed Richard on administrative leave while an independent firm reviewed the records. Blake remained chief executive, but two directors asked him to step aside as well.
He refused.
For three days, reporters surrounded Northstar, the courthouse, and Blake’s hotel.
Henry began wheezing after seeing cameras outside our house. His pediatrician adjusted his inhaler and wrote that stress appeared to be aggravating his symptoms.
That was the collateral damage no court order could reverse.
Blake moved from the lakefront hotel to a smaller property under another name. He dismissed the public security detail and hired two specialists experienced in protecting children without drawing attention.
He sent their credentials to Maya before assigning them anywhere.
“I don’t want unfamiliar men following the boys,” I said.
“They won’t. One will monitor the school perimeter from a parked vehicle. Claire will have both numbers.”
“You already arranged it?”
“I arranged the option. You decide whether to use it.”
That distinction mattered.
I approved one security specialist for school hours.
The second meeting with the boys occurred at my house because Dr. Morris wanted them in familiar surroundings. Blake arrived with ingredients for pancakes after learning that Saturday breakfast was their favorite ritual.
He burned the first batch.
Oliver inspected the blackened edges. “Mom makes circles.”
“I intended to make circles.”
“That one looks like Wisconsin.”
Blake put it on his own plate.
Henry accepted responsibility for stirring batter. Miles poured too much milk. Flour covered the counter, the floor, and half of Blake’s sweater.
For ninety minutes, he followed their directions.
Then Miles called him Dad.
The word slipped out while he was asking for syrup.
Blake froze with the bottle in his hand.
Oliver dropped his fork.
“He’s not Dad yet.”
Miles’s face crumpled. “Mom said he is.”
“She said biological father.”
The clinical phrase sounded strange in a four-year-old’s voice.
Blake set down the syrup.
“Oliver, you can call me Blake for as long as you want.”
“Are you going back to New York?”
“Not today.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I have work there, but I’ll keep coming back.”
“My friend’s dad said that. He moved to Arizona.”
“I’m not moving to Arizona.”
“You could stop coming.”
Blake looked at me, but I did not rescue him.
“Yes,” he said. “I could make that choice. I’m telling you I won’t. You don’t have to believe me today.”
Oliver returned to his pancake.
It was the right answer precisely because it asked for nothing.
After breakfast, Claire took the boys into the yard. Blake and I cleaned the kitchen.
“You could have told him I’m staying,” he said quietly.
“He needs to see it.”
“You prepared him not to trust me.”
“I prepared all of them not to expect you.”
“That’s a careful distinction.”
“It was how I kept them from feeling abandoned by someone they had never met.”
Blake placed a plate in the dishwasher.
“And when they learn you could have found me?”
“They will be angry.”
“With you?”
“Yes.”
That answer ended the argument.
Later, Claire came inside holding a plain envelope recovered from beneath the windshield wiper of her car.
Inside was a copy of the old hospital photograph—the same image someone had sent after the boys’ birth.
This copy was sharper.
A man was reflected in the hospital’s glass entrance, holding the camera.
Blake’s security team identified him as Peter Voss, a private investigator retained by Harrington Renewables during our divorce.
Blake called the company’s general counsel.
“Find every payment made to Voss,” he said.
The general counsel hesitated.
“Richard issued a preservation notice before his leave. Access to his personal files requires audit-committee approval.”
“Then obtain it.”
“I’ll make the request.”
Blake ended the call.
“He may have been watching me because of the laboratory investigation,” I said.
“That doesn’t explain the threat.”
“No. But it explains how they found the hospital.”
The audit committee produced Voss’s invoices the next day.
One line item covered surveillance at the neonatal unit.
Another covered “maternal-subject containment communication.”
May you like
The threatening note had not come from Blake.
It had been ordered, billed, and reimbursed by his father’s office.
