Chapter 9 - The Second Infant
Clara turned slowly.
“What does that mean?”
Arthur did not answer immediately.
Victoria began walking toward the door.
Clara grabbed her arm.
“No.”
Victoria looked at her daughter with wet eyes.
“Please.”
“No more please. No more family. No more protecting him. What happened?”
Victoria collapsed into a chair.
Arthur remained standing.
“There were two emergency deliveries that afternoon,” he said.
“So?”
“The records were confused.”
“Babies get wristbands.”
“Usually.”
Clara felt dizzy.
“What are you saying?”
Arthur’s expression remained hard.
“There was an evacuation on the maternity floor.”
Daniel frowned.
“Evacuation?”
“Electrical fire.”
Clara remembered alarms.
She had always assumed the memory came from anesthesia.
Flashing red lights.
Someone moving her bed.
A woman shouting.
She whispered, “There was a fire.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“You were sedated.”
“And Matthew?”
“Moved to a temporary neonatal area.”
Clara gripped the back of a chair.
“For how long?”
“Forty-three minutes.”
The number was too precise.
“You remember forty-three minutes?”
Arthur looked away.
Clara’s voice became sharper.
“You remember because something happened during those forty-three minutes.”
Victoria cried silently.
Arthur said, “Two infant identifiers were damaged.”
Clara stared.
“No.”
“The staff corrected them.”
“No.”
“Clara.”
“No.”
She backed away.
Matthew’s face filled her mind.
His eyes.
His laugh.
The way he slept curled into her side when thunderstorms woke him.
Arthur said, “I am not saying Matthew is not yours.”
“You are saying exactly enough to make me afraid.”
“There was an investigation.”
“What investigation?”
“Private.”
“By whom?”
“Evelyn.”
Clara looked at the hospital photograph.
That was why Evelyn had been there.
Not only the trust.
The baby.
“What did she find?”
Arthur’s jaw tightened.
“She found evidence that another family had been contacted.”
“Which family?”
“I don’t know.”
“Liar.”
“I don’t.”
“Then what did she find?”
“A payment.”
“To whom?”
“A nurse.”
“For what?”
Arthur took another drink.
“To alter a newborn record.”
The room went silent.
Clara thought she might vomit.
Chloe whispered, “Why?”
Arthur said, “That was what Evelyn tried to determine.”
“And Grant?”
“He followed her investigation.”
“For you?”
“Initially.”
“Then?”
Arthur looked toward the window.
“Then he began working for whoever had paid the nurse.”
Daniel whispered, “Jesus.”
Clara’s voice barely emerged.
“Did Evelyn find the other baby?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know more.”
Arthur did not answer.
Naomi said, “If there was a deliberate newborn record alteration, there will be hospital archives.”
Arthur smiled grimly.
“Not anymore.”
“What does that mean?”
“The hospital system suffered a data migration failure eleven years ago.”
Daniel laughed once.
“You mean records were destroyed.”
“I mean they cannot be relied on.”
Clara studied her father.
“You arranged it.”
Arthur did not deny it.
Victoria suddenly spoke.
“I kept something.”
Arthur turned.
“What?”
Victoria looked terrified.
“After the hospital.”
Arthur’s face changed completely.
“What did you keep?”
Victoria reached toward the pearl necklace at her throat.
Her fingers shook as she unclasped it.
She opened a tiny concealed locket Clara had never noticed.
Inside was a folded scrap of paper.
Arthur whispered, “You idiot.”
Victoria handed it to Clara.
It was a hospital identification label.
BABY VANCE, MALE.
A serial number.
And handwritten beneath it:
TRANSFER TEMP NURSERY B
Clara turned it over.
Another name had been written on the back.
BABY HOLLIS.
Arthur lunged.
Daniel caught his arm.
Naomi shouted.
Chloe screamed.
The scrap fell.
Clara grabbed it from the floor.
Arthur struggled against Daniel.
“Destroy that!”
Clara stared at him.
It was the first time in her life she had seen her father truly panic.
Not over money.
Not reputation.
A paper hospital tag.
“Who are the Hollises?”
Arthur stopped struggling.
Clara repeated it.
“Who are they?”
Arthur looked at her.
May you like
Then, very quietly, he said:
“The family your grandmother paid three million dollars never to contact you.”
