Chapter 7 - What Happened at St. Catherine’s
Rebecca returned in handcuffs.
I watched her enter the federal building through a side entrance.
She had always been the practical aunt.
The woman who remembered birthdays.
The woman who helped me choose a wedding dress.
The woman who sat in the front row when I married Brandon.
Now every memory felt contaminated.
Her statement lasted six hours.
She began working for Veridian as a junior administrative assistant after Caroline recommended her.
Rebecca admired Dean.
He made her feel important.
He told her Caroline was trying to destroy a technology that could save babies.
He described my mother as emotional, vindictive, and jealous.
When Caroline copied the failure data, Dean asked Rebecca to watch her.
The night of the crash, Rebecca followed Caroline’s car.
She intended to frighten her into stopping.
On a wet highway curve, Rebecca pulled too close.
Caroline accelerated.
Another vehicle approached.
Caroline lost control and struck the barrier.
Rebecca stopped.
She saw the damaged car.
She heard me crying inside.
I had been in the back seat.
I remembered nothing because I suffered a concussion.
“You left us?” I asked.
Rebecca could not look at me.
“I called emergency services from a pay phone.”
“You did not stay.”
“I was afraid.”
“My mother died alone.”
“She was alive when I left.”
That sentence would remain with me forever.
Rebecca returned to the scene later, but police had already taken us away.
Dean helped conceal her involvement.
In exchange, she continued watching me after Caroline’s death.
The break-in at her home was staged.
The photograph of me sleeping came from Rebecca.
She used it to support the story that unknown people threatened us.
“Why raise me?” I asked.
“Guilt.”
“Not love?”
“I did love you.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
I believed her.
That made it worse.
People could love you and still build your life on a lie.
Rebecca knew Dean survived.
She occasionally delivered messages between him and Florence.
She also helped Dean locate Caroline’s archive at St. Catherine’s.
But the priest refused to surrender it.
After the church closed, Dean purchased the property.
The archive was no longer there.
Caroline had moved the most important files before her death.
“Where?” Agent Price asked.
Rebecca looked at me.
“She gave them to Lauren’s father.”
My father, Michael Hayes, had supposedly died in a boating accident when I was five.
Another dead parent.
Another possibility.
“Is he alive too?” I asked.
Rebecca shook her head.
“He died. That part is true.”
Michael worked as an investigative journalist.
He and Caroline met while he reported on hospital-device failures.
Together, they collected evidence against Veridian.
After his death, Caroline kept his files in a storage facility under my name.
“Where?”
“San Diego.”
The city where I built my career.
Where I lived for nearly a decade.
The archive had been near me the entire time.
Rebecca gave us the storage key number.
The facility changed ownership, but the unit remained active through automatic payments from a trust established by Michael.
Inside were boxes of records, interview tapes, photographs, and drafts of an unpublished investigation.
Michael had identified three infant deaths connected to Veridian’s device.
Owen was not among them because he died years later.
Dean knew the design was dangerous.
He continued.
The archive also included evidence that Michael’s boating accident was suspicious.
A mechanic reported damage to the fuel line.
The report disappeared.
Dean had met with the marina owner days earlier.
There was not enough evidence to prove murder.
But enough to reopen the case.
The final box contained letters for me.
My father wrote them before dangerous assignments.
My mother added notes afterward.
One letter read:
Lauren, truth is not the same as certainty. Sometimes you will never know every detail. Do not let the missing pieces force you to surrender the pieces you have.
That became important.
Because I wanted perfect answers.
Did Dean kill my father?
Did Rebecca cause my mother’s death intentionally or through cowardice?
Did Brandon ever truly love me?
Did Florence care about Hannah more than she cared about preserving her family?
Some questions would remain incomplete.
The evidence we did have was enough.
Dean’s trial began the following year.
Claire testified about Owen.
I testified about Hannah.
Former Asteron employees described pressure.
Scientists explained the hidden frequency problem.
Families of Veridian victims brought photographs.
Dean represented himself for part of the trial because he believed no attorney understood the technology as well as he did.
He spoke for hours about innovation.
Risk.
Regulatory delay.
Lives that might have been saved.
The prosecutor asked one question.
“How many parents gave informed consent for you to use their babies?”
Dean answered indirectly.
The judge ordered him to respond.
Finally, he said, “Not all.”
“How many?”
“Four.”
“Out of how many?”
Dean looked toward me.
“Twenty-three.”
The courtroom became silent.
Nineteen infants.
Nineteen families.
No consent.
Dean still believed future benefit justified present harm.
The jury disagreed.
He was convicted of unlawful human experimentation, conspiracy, fraud, obstruction, evidence tampering, and multiple related offenses.
The reopened death investigations remained unresolved.
But Dean would spend the rest of his life in prison.
Rebecca pleaded guilty to obstruction, evidence concealment, and leaving an accident scene.
She received seven years.
Before sentencing, she asked to speak with me.
I agreed once.
She said, “I don’t expect forgiveness.”
“Good.”
“I want you to know your mother never stopped fighting.”
“I know.”
“She was proud of you.”
“You don’t get to deliver her approval.”
Rebecca lowered her head.
I left.
Forgiveness might come years later.
Or never.
Healing did not require me to force it.
Brandon’s trial followed.
Claire sat beside me.
Two women who once believed we were alone.
When the prosecutor displayed photographs of Hannah and Owen, Brandon cried.
I do not know whether the tears came from guilt, grief, or self-pity.
Perhaps all three.
He pleaded guilty before the jury deliberated.
His sentence was twenty-one years.
During his statement, he apologized to Hannah.
I wanted to interrupt.
A baby should not carry the burden of an adult’s apology.
Instead, I held my daughter in the courthouse waiting room after the hearing.
She was fourteen months old.
She touched my face.
Then she laughed at the echo of her own voice.
May you like
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That sound mattered more than anything Brandon said.
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