Chapter 7: The Expulsion
Chapter 7: The Expulsion
Ethan did not believe Rosa had written the note willingly.
The handwriting looked like hers, but the wording did not.
Rosa would never say “do not look for us.”
She would say, “Leave us alone.”
He called every hospital.
Every transportation station.
Every contact his investigators could locate.
Nothing.
Then the building superintendent mentioned seeing Rosa leave with a woman in a navy coat.
“She looked upset,” he said. “The little girl was asleep.”
“Did you see the woman’s face?”
“No. But she arrived in a black sedan.”
Security footage from the street showed the vehicle.
The license plate was hidden.
The sedan disappeared toward Manhattan.
At midnight, Ethan received a call from an unknown number.
“Stop investigating Columbia,” a distorted voice said.
“Where are they?”
“Alive.”
“If you hurt them—”
“Withdraw the paternity request.”
Ethan’s blood turned cold.
“The samples have already been collected.”
“Samples can disappear.”
The call ended.
Ethan contacted federal authorities.
His lawyers advised caution.
His security director traced the call to a disposable phone used near Columbia University.
At two in the morning, Ethan entered the university archives with the dean’s permission.
Rosa’s academic record showed that she had withdrawn voluntarily.
She had not been expelled.
The newspaper story was false.
But inside a sealed disciplinary file, Ethan found something stranger.
Four years earlier, Rosa had reported suspected manipulation of clinical trial data by a private pharmaceutical company funding Columbia research.
The company was Halcyon Biotech.
At the time, Halcyon had been quietly negotiating a merger.
With Caldwell Industries.
Ethan stared at the page.
His father had overseen the deal.
Rosa had not merely been an inconvenient girlfriend.
She had been a whistleblower capable of destroying a billion-dollar acquisition.
Ethan’s father had needed her gone.
And the Haynes family had invested heavily in Halcyon.
His phone rang.
The DNA laboratory.
“Mr. Caldwell,” the director said, “there has been a security breach.”
Ethan’s stomach tightened.
“Were the samples compromised?”
“We believe someone attempted to replace them.”
“Attempted?”
“One technician noticed the seals had been altered. We preserved secondary samples in secure storage.”
“When will the results be ready?”
“They are ready now.”
Ethan gripped the phone.
“And?”
The director paused.
“The probability of paternity is 99.9998 percent.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
Lily was his daughter.
He felt relief, grief and rage at the same time.
Then another call came through.
Rosa.
He answered immediately.
“Rosa?”
Her voice was faint.
“Ethan, listen to me.”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know. They took my phone, but one of them left it in the car.”
“Is Lily with you?”
“Yes.”
In the background, Lily was crying softly.
“Mama, I want home.”
Ethan’s heart broke.
“Rosa, look around. Tell me anything.”
“A warehouse. I smell chemicals.”
A door slammed somewhere near her.
Rosa whispered faster.
“There are blue barrels. A train passes nearby.”
“Stay on the line.”
“I can’t.”
“Rosa—”
“One of them said Caroline wants the records before the wedding.”
“What records?”
“The missing trial data.”
Footsteps approached.
Rosa breathed one final sentence.
May you like
“Your father hid them inside the piano.”
The call ended.
