Chapter 11 - CLAIRE WALKED INTO MY DELIVERY ROOM
Security locked down the maternity wing.
Every elevator stopped.
Every stairwell was guarded.
Claire was somewhere inside.
I should have been terrified.
Instead, labor took over.
My body no longer cared about family conspiracies.
Six centimeters.
Then seven.
The obstetrician said the baby was coming.
Magnesium.
Steroids.
NICU team prepared.
Nathan stepped outside.
Matthias stayed.
I allowed him to hold my hand only when the contractions became unbearable.
Not because our marriage was repaired.
Because I needed something solid.
At 6:41 p.m., a physician entered wearing a mask and surgical cap.
Female.
She looked at my monitor.
Then moved toward my IV.
I stared at her eyes.
Brown.
Claire’s employee photograph showed green.
Not her.
I exhaled.
Then the real nurse screamed in the hallway.
The lights went out.
Emergency power activated immediately.
For perhaps three seconds, everything was dark.
Three seconds was enough.
When the lights returned, the bassinet prepared for delivery was gone.
Matthias looked toward the doorway.
A woman in scrubs was pushing it down the hallway.
“Claire!”
Security ran.
Claire abandoned the bassinet and disappeared through a staff door.
They cornered her inside a supply corridor ten minutes later.
She held no weapon.
Just a hospital badge and a small vial.
Police ordered her down.
Claire laughed.
“You all think I wanted the baby.”
Then she dropped the vial.
It contained oxytocin.
Enough, investigators believed, to force or accelerate labor if introduced improperly.
She had intended to make sure my daughter was born before the trust deadline.
Not kill her.
Not initially.
Claire wanted the baby alive because my daughter would control the inheritance through trust.
Claire planned to create enough questions around Matthias’s paternity and my competence to force a guardianship battle.
Then insert herself as the previously hidden Dre heir offering “stability.”
Insane.
But legally disruptive enough to freeze tens of millions.
Police handcuffed her.
As they led her away, she looked directly at Conrad.
“You taught me every person has a price.”
Conrad said nothing.
Then she looked at me.
“You’re lucky.”
“No.”
I breathed through another contraction.
“My daughter is.”
Claire smiled strangely.
“Ask Matthias about Boston.”
My husband went rigid.
Even now.
Another secret.
“What happened in Boston?”
Matthias closed his eyes.
“The night I told you I was there…”
“You were in New Haven with Fiona.”
“Yes.”
“What about Boston?”
He swallowed.
“I had been there the day before.”
“Doing what?”
He looked toward Nathan.
“Moving money.”
My heart sank.
Matthias had secretly transferred seventeen million dollars out of Dre Capital before the Christmas party.
Not for Conrad.
Not for Fiona.
May you like
For himself.
And Claire had evidence.
