Chapter 4 - BABY B
I demanded to return to the hospital.
Isabelle refused.
“Adrian expects that.”
“My child may still be there.”
“He isn’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know Adrian. If he showed us the baby, he has already moved him.”
The certainty in her voice made me hate her for one irrational second.
Not because she was wrong.
Because she was calm while my world was splitting open.
Ethan took both my hands.
“We will find him.”
“How long have you known?”
“I didn’t.”
“Did the doctors tell you there were twins?”
“No.”
His answer came without hesitation.
I believed him.
That made the situation worse.
Someone had deceived both of us inside a hospital filled with witnesses, cameras, records, and security.
Rachel contacted a federal prosecutor she trusted.
Within thirty minutes, Special Agent Naomi Keller from the FBI’s organized financial-crime division arrived at the mill.
She listened without interrupting.
Then she asked to examine Leo.
A pediatric physician compared his bracelet number with the electronic copy of my maternity record.
The bracelet ended in 417A.
The hospital record listed only infant 417.
No letter.
The video showed 417B.
“Someone altered the record after the bracelets were printed,” the physician said.
Agent Keller requested every surveillance feed and personnel log from the delivery ward.
Most had been erased during the power outage.
But Isabelle’s team had intercepted an external backup.
The footage showed two nurses leaving the operating room.
Claire Bennett carried Leo.
A second nurse pushed a covered bassinet toward the service elevator.
Her face was hidden by a mask and surgical cap.
The identification badge belonged to a woman named Natalie Cross.
Hospital administration claimed no employee by that name worked there.
Agent Keller froze the video.
“Look at her hand.”
The woman wore a large emerald ring.
My mother sat down abruptly.
I looked at her.
“You recognize it.”
She shook her head.
“Rose.”
My father spoke her name like a warning.
“Who is she?” Ethan asked.
My mother’s voice trembled.
“My sister.”
I had met Aunt Rose only twice.
She moved to Europe when I was a child and rarely contacted the family.
My mother claimed they had fallen out over inheritance disagreements.
Rose was supposed to be living in Switzerland.
“You told us she was sick,” I said.
“She is.”
“Is she a nurse?”
“She trained as one.”
The room fell silent.
My mother began explaining in fragments.
Rose had worked as a private nurse for wealthy families before marrying a Swiss financier.
Years earlier, she became involved with Adrian.
My mother insisted it was romantic.
My father called it blackmail.
Garrick laughed bitterly.
“With this family, it was probably both.”
The emerald ring had belonged to my grandmother.
Rose inherited it.
If she was the woman in the footage, my aunt had taken my child.
“Call her,” I said.
My mother hesitated.
“Now.”
She dialed an international number.
A recorded message said it was disconnected.
Agent Keller traced the recent account activity connected to Rose.
Her passport had entered the United States three weeks earlier under a diplomatic medical exemption.
The sponsoring company was Bellweather Holdings.
My father stood.
“I need a lawyer.”
“You needed one before you brought fraudulent transfer documents into a hospital,” Agent Keller replied.
“I am not answering more questions.”
“You are free to remain silent.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Not yet.”
The words frightened him.
My mother looked toward the photograph Adrian had shown.
“What did ‘approved the water’ mean?”
Isabelle answered.
“The explosive on my boat was placed inside a drinking-water storage tank.”
My mother stared at her.
“I knew nothing about that.”
“Your maiden name was Rosewood. Adrian’s note may refer to Rose, not you.”
“No,” my father said quietly.
Everyone turned.
He rubbed both hands across his face.
“The note referred to Rose Ashford.”
My mother’s sister had briefly married my father’s older brother, making her an Ashford before divorcing him.
Afterward, she used both surnames depending on the country.
Charles admitted Rose had served as a medical consultant during the failed Black Harbor project.
She approved contaminated water reports that allowed construction to continue despite toxic runoff.
When a worker threatened to expose them, Rose falsified his medical records to make his illness appear unrelated.
He later died.
“Why was she never investigated?” I asked.
“Because the original reports disappeared.”
“Who removed them?”
My father looked at Garrick.
Garrick shook his head.
“I was seventeen.”
My father looked at my mother.
She stood abruptly.
“No.”
“Margaret asked you to clear the archive room.”
“I thought they were duplicate records.”
“You burned them.”
My mother’s face collapsed.
She had destroyed evidence without asking what it contained.
Again, not because she was cruel in the obvious sense.
Because she had trained herself to obey the family’s interests before morality.
Adrian used people like her because they needed only vague instructions.
They supplied their own excuses.
Agent Keller received a call.
Federal agents had searched Rose’s registered hotel room.
It was empty.
They found infant formula, medical equipment, and two passports bearing different names.
They also found a handwritten schedule for feeding a newborn.
“He’s alive,” I whispered.
The physician nodded.
“The supplies indicate someone is actively caring for him.”
A location appeared repeatedly on Rose’s navigation history.
An old Ashford property outside Baltimore.
Black Harbor House.
The abandoned mansion had once served as the project’s sales center.
My father claimed it had been demolished.
Satellite records showed otherwise.
We prepared to leave immediately.
Agent Keller insisted I remain behind.
“No.”
“You gave birth hours ago.”
“My child was stolen hours ago.”
“You could hemorrhage.”
“Then bring a doctor.”
Ethan supported me.
“She goes where I go.”
The drive to Black Harbor took less than an hour by helicopter.
Leo slept inside a portable bassinet secured beside me.
A physician monitored us.
I felt guilty bringing him toward danger.
I felt worse leaving him behind.
The mansion stood at the edge of a polluted inlet, its windows boarded and its gardens overtaken by weeds.
Federal agents surrounded the property.
No movement appeared inside.
A tactical unit entered.
Three minutes later, Agent Keller received confirmation.
One adult woman found unconscious.
No baby.
We entered after the building was secured.
Rose lay in a library, sedated but alive.
Her emerald ring remained on her finger.
On the wall, Adrian had written a message in red paint.
WRONG CHILD.
A bassinet stood near the fireplace.
Empty.
Beside it lay a photograph of Leo’s twin.
On the back was a name.
LUCAS LAURENT.
I pressed the photograph against my chest.
Ethan stood behind me.
“He has a name.”
“He has us.”
A weak voice came from the floor.
Rose opened her eyes.
“They took him.”
I knelt beside her.
“Where?”
“He wasn’t supposed to be born.”
“What does that mean?”
She struggled to focus.
“Adrian wanted one heir. The older twin.”
“Which one is older?”
“Lucas.”
My heart twisted.
Leo was Baby A only because the hospital had switched the bracelets.
Lucas had been born first.
The true first Laurent heir.
“Why did Adrian take him?”
Rose began crying.
“He didn’t.”
“Then who did?”
She looked toward my mother.
“Victoria did.”
My mother froze.
Victoria Laurent was Ethan’s grandmother.
The ninety-two-year-old matriarch of Laurent Capital.
A woman who had congratulated me on my pregnancy with a handwritten note and a silver rattle.
A woman Ethan visited every Sunday.
A woman everyone believed was too frail to leave her private residence.
Rose gripped my wrist.
“Victoria built Bellweather.”
Ethan shook his head.
“No.”
“She used Adrian as the public face.”
“That’s impossible.”
“She ordered Isabelle’s boat destroyed. She ordered Vincent poisoned. She has spent twenty-four years eliminating every heir she could not control.”
“Why would she take Lucas?”
Rose’s eyes moved toward Leo.
“Because one twin opens the vault.”
“And the other?”
“The other closes it forever.”
A gunshot sounded upstairs.
Then another.
Agent Keller’s radio exploded with voices.
An elderly woman had been located inside a hidden elevator.
She was escaping through a tunnel beneath the mansion.
Security footage showed Victoria Laurent carrying Lucas in her arms.
Ethan stared at the screen.
His grandmother looked directly into the camera.
Then she smiled.
May you like
A message appeared beneath the image.
BRING THE SECOND CHILD TO THE ASHFORD TOWER, OR THE FIRST ONE WILL NEVER LEAVE ALIVE.
