Chapter 6 - THE CHILD WHO NEVER EXISTED
There should have been records.
There were none.
Blackwood Medical Center claimed Emily had never been admitted for a miscarriage.
No billing record.
No ultrasound.
No laboratory results.
Nothing.
Emily sat across from Marcus Reed in disbelief.
“I was there for six hours.”
“Who brought you?”
“Eleanor.”
David looked at her.
“My mother?”
“I called your office. You were overseas. She answered your phone.”
“She had my phone?”
“You left it with your assistant because you had meetings.”
David remembered.
The trip.
The meetings.
The chaos.
Eleanor had flown to London two days later and told David Emily was suffering from food poisoning.
He had believed her.
Emily continued.
“She came to my apartment and found me bleeding.”
“Why didn’t you call your doctor?”
“I was terrified.”
“Did Vance perform a procedure?”
She hesitated.
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“He said the pregnancy tissue had to be removed.”
Marcus leaned forward.
“Did you sign forms?”
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“They gave me something for pain.”
David’s hands clenched.
“What happened after?”
“I woke up in a recovery room.”
“Was Eleanor there?”
“Yes.”
“And Vance?”
“Yes.”
Marcus asked, “Did you ever receive pathology results confirming miscarriage?”
Emily shook her head.
David stood.
“No.”
Emily looked at him.
“No what?”
“No.”
His face had gone pale.
“You’re thinking…”
“Yes.”
“David, don’t.”
“What if you didn’t miscarry?”
“I was bleeding.”
“What if they made you bleed?”
“Stop.”
“What if…”
“David!”
He stopped.
Emily’s eyes filled.
“You cannot put that in my head without proof.”
He nodded slowly.
“You’re right.”
But the thought had already entered the room.
And once there, it refused to leave.
Marcus spent the next forty-eight hours searching.
He found something.
A private ambulance record.
Emily had been transferred from Blackwood Medical Center to a Halcyon facility.
The transfer occurred at 1:22 a.m.
She had no memory of it.
Destination:
Halcyon Women’s Center.
Length of stay:
Thirty-one hours.
Emily stared at the page.
“That’s impossible.”
David sat beside her.
“You remember waking at Blackwood Medical.”
“Yes.”
“You may have been moved after.”
“No.”
Marcus placed another document down.
The receiving patient name was not Emily Blackwood.
It was Emily Hart.
Her maiden name.
She covered her mouth.
The admission diagnosis:
Threatened pregnancy.
Not miscarriage.
Threatened pregnancy.
David closed his eyes.
Emily whispered, “Was my baby alive?”
Marcus did not answer.
He turned another page.
Fetal heart tones present.
David stood so quickly his chair fell.
Emily began crying.
“My baby was alive.”
Nobody knew what to say.
The next line changed everything.
Discharge disposition:
Maternal transfer complete.
Fetal custody protocol initiated.
Emily stopped crying.
Her entire face emptied.
“What does that mean?”
Marcus looked ill.
“I don’t know.”
David was already calling someone.
“Who?”
“A federal prosecutor I trust.”
Emily grabbed his wrist.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because we don’t know how deep this goes.”
“They stole our child.”
“Maybe.”
“Emily.”
“Maybe.”
She forced the word through her teeth.
“If we accuse them now, Eleanor destroys everything before we know where the baby went.”
David stared at her.
She was trembling.
But her voice was steady.
“We make her think we still don’t understand.”
He slowly sat.
Marcus nodded.
“She’s right.”
David looked at him.
“I don’t like that sentence today.”
“I know.”
They built a trap.
David publicly announced that the Halcyon documents appeared fraudulent and that he intended no legal action until an internal review finished.
Within six hours, Eleanor called him.
“You’ve finally become sensible.”
“Don’t sound surprised.”
“I’ve waited years.”
“I want to meet.”
“Without your wife.”
David looked at Emily.
She nodded.
“Fine.”
Eleanor chose Blackwood Manor.
David arrived alone.
At least, Eleanor believed he did.
Marcus listened through a concealed transmitter.
Emily sat in a car two miles away with federal investigator Rachel Mercer, an old law-school friend of David’s who had agreed to help unofficially until they had enough evidence.
Eleanor waited in the library.
“You look tired,” she said.
“My wife almost died.”
“She fainted.”
“She was drugged.”
Eleanor poured herself wine.
“Women like Emily turn inconvenience into tragedy.”
David sat.
“Tell me about Halcyon.”
“You’re not ready.”
“I’m thirty-six.”
“You’ve always been younger than you think.”
“Am I your son?”
Eleanor stared at him.
Then smiled.
“No.”
The word hit harder than David expected.
Eleanor drank.
“You were Thomas’s mistake.”
“Rebecca Hale.”
Her expression sharpened.
“So you found Caroline.”
“Where is Rebecca?”
“Dead.”
“How?”
“Your father destroyed her.”
“Did you kill her?”
Eleanor laughed.
“No.”
“Did Vance?”
“No.”
“Where is she buried?”
“She isn’t.”
David’s eyes narrowed.
“What does that mean?”
Eleanor leaned forward.
“It means Rebecca Hale never died.”
David stopped breathing.
May you like
Eleanor smiled.
“She’s been alive this entire time.”
