Chapter 12 - Baby Sullivan B
Detective Nora Bennett arrived before eight o’clock.
She wore gloves while examining the envelope and photograph, but her expression changed when Jake explained that the security recording had been deleted remotely.
“Only three people have administrative access,” Jake said. “Megan, me, and the security company.”
“Lorraine never had the password?”
“Not to this house.”
Detective Bennett looked toward Grace’s nursery.
“Change every password anyway.”
The photograph was taken to the station. By afternoon, a document examiner confirmed that the older writing on the back had likely been added decades earlier. The black message was recent.
Jake called the hospital where he had been born.
The building had changed ownership twice, but its archived records had been transferred to a medical-storage company outside Chicago.
The first employee Jake spoke with found only one birth certificate.
Jacob Andrew Sullivan.
Male.
Healthy.
Single birth.
Detective Bennett asked the employee to search the original delivery ledger instead.
There was a long silence.
“The page is missing,” the employee finally said.
“What do you mean, missing?” Jake asked.
“The records jump from patient Sullivan, room 314, to patient Taylor, room 318. The sheet containing rooms 315 through 317 was removed.”
Lorraine had delivered Jake in room 316.
Megan began searching through the digital copies of evidence collected from Lorraine’s house. Most concerned the guardianship petition, financial accounts, and Grace.
Then she found an overlooked receipt.
It came from a private records company and had been issued only six months before Jake returned from deployment.
Lorraine had paid $1,800 to retrieve sealed maternity records from the year Jake was born.
“She knew,” Megan whispered.
Detective Bennett contacted the prison and requested a monitored interview.
Lorraine initially refused.
But when Bennett mentioned Baby Sullivan B, Lorraine changed her mind.
Before ending the call, she made one demand.
“I will speak to Megan,” she said. “Not Jake.”
“Why?”
May you like
Lorraine lowered her voice.
“Because my son still doesn’t understand what his father did.”
