Chapter 5 - The Doctor Who Sold My Daughter
Daniel drove us to a small lakeside cabin he owned outside Milwaukee. He had bought it years earlier as a place to disappear when business became dangerous.
For the first time that night, Sophie slept without interruption.
I sat beside the fireplace, holding the hospital documents, while Daniel searched for Dr. Evelyn Shaw.
At 2:14 a.m., he found her.
She had disappeared from her medical practice four days earlier. Her office had been cleared, her phone disconnected, and her house sold through a company linked to Laya Crane.
"Why would Laya pay a doctor?" I asked.
Daniel opened a financial report.
"Because Evelyn was the physician who prepared the DNA test."
I stared at the page.
"Then the test was fake."
"Probably. But we need proof."
He found a photograph of Evelyn leaving a private clinic with a man whose face was partially hidden beneath a baseball cap.
I recognized the coat.
It belonged to Roman.
My stomach tightened.
"Maybe he was investigating her."
"Maybe," Daniel said. "Or maybe he knew exactly what she was doing."
I hated how many possibilities existed, and how few answers I could trust.
At dawn, Daniel received a call from an attorney named Margaret Ellis. She represented a former employee of the Moretti organization who claimed to have witnessed an illegal transfer at the clinic.
Margaret agreed to meet us that afternoon.
Before we left, I checked Sophie's diaper bag and found something I'd never packed.
A tiny silver bracelet.
The clasp carried an engraved letter: R.
Beneath the bracelet was a folded note.
Ask Roman what happened to the first baby.
I read it again.
Then I called Margaret.
She answered immediately.
"Mrs. Moretti, I'm glad you found the note. I was hoping it would reach you."
My heart raced.
"Who left it?"
"A nurse who worked at the clinic. She disappeared last night."
"What's the first baby?"
Margaret was silent for several seconds.
Then she said, "Three years ago, Laya Crane gave birth to a son. The child was declared dead shortly after delivery."
I gripped the phone.
"What does that have to do with Sophie?"
"The records show that Laya's son was transferred to a private neonatal unit before the death certificate was issued."
"Was he alive?"
"We don't know."
Margaret lowered her voice.
"But the nurse who left that bracelet believed the baby survived."
I looked at the silver R.
"Why would she connect him to Roman?"
"Because the birth certificate listed Roman Moretti as the father."
The cabin suddenly felt too small.
Laya hadn't merely been Roman's mistress.
May you like
She had given birth to his child three years earlier.
And somebody had hidden that child from the world.
