Chapter 4 - Someone Wanted My Baby's Records
I read the message three times before I could make sense of it.
Vanessa had been trying to obtain Hailey's medical records.
Why?
“Liam,” I said carefully, “did you give Vanessa access to our daughter's information?”
“No.”
His answer came too quickly.
I turned the phone toward him.
He stared at the photograph, then looked at Diane. Something passed between them, brief but unmistakable.
My stomach tightened.
“What aren't you telling me?”
“Nothing,” he insisted.
My father stood. “That answer isn't going to work anymore.”
Liam paced behind his chair. For years, I had mistaken his ability to control a room for strength. Now he looked like a man trapped by every lie he'd ever told.
Finally, he admitted that Vanessa had contacted him about Hailey several weeks earlier.
She had asked whether the baby had undergone genetic testing.
He claimed he hadn't understood why she cared.
“Did you answer her?” I asked.
“I told her Hailey was healthy.”
“That wasn't my question.”
He lowered his eyes.
“Yes.”
I felt something inside me go cold.
He had discussed our daughter with the woman he planned to marry after abandoning us.
I took Hailey upstairs, refusing to let the argument continue over her sleeping head. When I returned, Diane was waiting near the staircase.
“Please don't hate my son,” she whispered.
“I don't have time to hate him. I need to protect my child.”
She nodded, tears gathering in her eyes.
Then she slipped a folded note into my hand.
“I should have told you this before.”
The handwriting was hers.
May you like
The message contained only one sentence.
Hailey's birth was not the first time Vanessa's family tried to interfere with your marriage.
