Chapter 6 - the nurse who changed the record
Marcus found the service corridor empty.
The white fabric Claire had seen could have belonged to Vivienne, a server or any of the dozens of guests wearing pale formal clothes.
Dr. Cole remained conscious.
The small dart embedded in his shoulder contained a sedative rather than a bullet. Marcus removed it carefully and called an ambulance through the estate’s wired line.
“You are not going to sleep,” Claire told the doctor.
Dr. Cole leaned against a leather chair.
“I wish I could.”
“Who attacked you?”
“I didn’t see.”
“You said you followed instructions.”
He closed his eyes.
Daniel gripped the chair beside him.
“Where is my son?”
Dr. Cole opened his eyes again.
“I don’t know.”
“Was he alive?”
“Yes.”
The answer left the room silent.
Claire felt the floor shift beneath her.
For seven years, she had mourned a child she had never been allowed to see.
A son whose death had been presented as a blurred sentence on a discharge paper.
No name.
No photograph.
No grave.
Sophie had asked about him once, after hearing Claire cry in her sleep.
Claire had called him a dream that had ended too soon.
Now Dr. Cole was saying he had lived.
“What happened to him?” Claire asked.
“The delivery became complicated. You were sedated. The girl was healthy. The boy needed respiratory support, but he stabilized within an hour.”
“Who took him?”
“A private adoption team arrived before dawn.”
“I never consented to an adoption.”
“I know.”
“Then it was kidnapping.”
Dr. Cole looked away.
Daniel’s voice became dangerously calm.
“Who signed the forms?”
“Vivienne.”
“She is not Claire’s relative.”
“She used a medical power of attorney.”
“I never signed one,” Claire said.
“The signature was copied from your prenatal agreement.”
Daniel stepped back as though the room had become too small.
“Why?”
Dr. Cole swallowed.
“Vivienne believed a child would make Claire impossible to remove from the family. Two children would make her more powerful.”
“So she gave away my son and planned to take Sophie too?”
“The original plan was to declare both children stillborn.”
Claire could no longer feel her hands.
Dr. Cole continued quickly.
“Your father arrived unexpectedly. Edmund had learned Claire was in the hospital. Vivienne ordered us to move the girl into the normal nursery before he reached the maternity floor.”
“Edmund saw Sophie?” Daniel asked.
“For less than a minute. Vivienne told him the baby belonged to another patient. He believed her at first.”
Claire thought of the locket.
The child who was denied her name.
“When did Edmund discover the truth?”
“Years later. A nurse kept copies of the original records.”
“What nurse?”
“Anna Reyes.”
Helen inhaled sharply.
“I know that name. Edmund sent payments to her.”
Dr. Cole nodded.
“Not payments. Protection. Anna tried to expose what happened. Someone entered her apartment and destroyed the records. After that, she disappeared.”
“Is she alive?” Claire asked.
“I don’t know.”
The library telephone rang.
Marcus answered.
He listened for several seconds.
Then he looked at Claire.
“It’s for you.”
“Who is it?”
“A woman named Anna Reyes.”
Claire took the receiver.
“Anna?”
The voice on the other end was barely louder than a breath.
“Do not let Dr. Cole leave with the ambulance.”
Claire looked toward him.
“Why?”
“Because the people coming for him are not paramedics.”
The estate intercom sounded.
A guard announced that the ambulance had arrived at the south entrance.
Anna continued.
“Go to the kitchen pantry. Behind the third wine cabinet, there is a service tunnel Edmund used during the war renovations.”
“How do you know?”
“I have been inside this house for two months.”
Claire turned toward the library doors.
“Where are you?”
“Closer than Vivienne realizes.”
“Do you have the original records?”
“I have something more important.”
“What?”
“The name of the family who took your son.”
The line went dead.
Marcus contacted the south entrance.
No one answered.
He opened a cabinet and removed an emergency radio.
“Two men in paramedic uniforms entered three minutes ago. They disabled the gate camera.”
Daniel helped Dr. Cole stand.
“We use the tunnel.”
Claire gathered the hospital file and birth certificate.
Helen took the trust documents.
As they moved toward the kitchen, the ballroom orchestra began playing again.
Vivienne had convinced the guests that the sprinkler failure was a minor technical problem.
Her voice floated through the speakers.
“The auction will resume in ten minutes.”
Claire stopped.
“She is keeping everyone inside.”
Marcus looked toward the windows.
“Or keeping the police outside.”
They reached the kitchen pantry and moved the third wine cabinet.
Behind it was a narrow stone passage.
Dr. Cole hesitated at the entrance.
“I cannot go down there.”
Daniel held his arm.
“You can either walk with us or wait for Vivienne’s ambulance.”
The doctor entered.
Marcus moved the cabinet back into place.
The tunnel descended beneath the mansion.
Halfway down the stairs, Sophie’s voice echoed from somewhere ahead.
“Mom?”
Claire ran.
“Sophie!”
The passage opened into an old storage room.
Sophie stood beside Mrs. Alvarez, the estate cook.
Both were unharmed.
Beside them stood a woman wearing a server’s white jacket.
She had silver streaks in her dark hair and a scar along her chin.
Dr. Cole stopped breathing.
“Anna.”
Anna Reyes looked at him without warmth.
Then she turned to Claire and placed an old hospital bracelet in her hand.
The faded label read:
Baby Boy Bennett.
May you like
Beneath the name was a second line written in blue ink.
Transferred to Blackwood House.
