Chapter 4 - The Hospital Was Not Safe
The intruder escaped through a service elevator.
Security footage showed him removing his surgical mask, but facial recognition returned no match. His hospital identification belonged to a nurse who had died six years earlier.
The syringe contained enough medication to trigger catastrophic fetal distress.
Nathan moved Claire before sunrise.
She was transferred under an assumed name to a private obstetric wing at Fort Halden Medical Center, a military hospital forty miles from Richmond. Only four people knew her location: Nathan, the supervising physician, the chief marshal, and Elena.
Claire objected to Elena being included.
Nathan overruled her.
“Daniel contacted her,” he said. “That makes her either a target or bait.”
“I am not sharing a safe room with a woman who may claim my baby.”
Elena stood silently near the transport van.
She looked as if she wanted to disappear.
Nathan lowered his voice.
“You do not have to trust her. But right now she is cooperating, and she has information we need.”
Claire climbed into the van without answering.
The secured hospital room had reinforced windows, two federal guards, and a camera facing the entrance. Claire still checked the bathroom, closet, and air vents before she sat down.
Elena took the chair farthest from the bed.
For several hours, neither woman spoke.
At noon, Nathan arrived carrying a sealed evidence case.
“The fire department entered the storage facility,” he said. “They found laboratory freezers, patient records, and one body.”
“Daniel?” Claire asked.
“No. The body belonged to Dr. Samuel Reed, Hawthorne’s former director.”
Elena looked up.
“The clinic said he moved overseas.”
“He was shot before the fire started.”
Nathan opened the case.
Inside was a fire-damaged metal box containing several folders. Most pages were unreadable, but one photograph had survived.
It showed Daniel standing inside a laboratory with Dr. Reed and a woman Claire recognized.
Her mother-in-law, Margaret Bennett.
Claire felt the floor shift beneath her.
“Margaret told me she had never been inside Hawthorne.”
“The date stamp is from six weeks before your embryo transfer,” Nathan said.
Margaret had controlled Daniel’s life from the beginning of their relationship. She criticized Claire’s career, her clothes, her inability to conceive, and even the way she arranged flowers at family dinners.
After Claire became pregnant, Margaret transformed.
She bought a crib, hired a private nursery designer, and referred to the baby as “our little Bennett heir.”
Claire had mistaken possessiveness for excitement.
“What was she doing there?” Claire asked.
“We don’t know.”
Nathan removed another item from the box.
A small digital recorder.
“It survived because it was inside a thermal pouch.”
“Does it work?”
“Partially.”
He pressed play.
Static filled the room.
Then Dr. Reed’s voice emerged.
“Assignment confirmed. Carrier Bennett will receive embryo E-W-six.”
Claire grabbed the bed rail.
A woman spoke next.
Margaret.
“And the original Bennett embryo?”
“Reserved.”
“For whom?”
A third voice answered.
Daniel.
“For the secondary mother.”
The recording cut off.
Claire could not move.
Elena began crying silently.
Nathan stopped the recorder.
“There may be more audio, but technicians need time to recover it.”
“What is a secondary mother?” Claire asked.
“We believe Hawthorne used that term for a recipient who was not listed in the official records.”
“Another woman received my embryo.”
Nathan’s face hardened.
“That is one possibility.”
Claire turned toward Elena.
The anger she had directed at her began to dissolve into something worse.
If the recording was real, Elena’s embryo had been placed inside Claire without either woman’s consent.
Claire’s embryo might have been placed inside someone else.
Somewhere, another child could carry Claire’s DNA.
“How old would the child be?” Elena whispered.
Nathan checked the date.
“About nine months older than Claire’s pregnancy.”
Claire counted backward.
A child born earlier that year.
Daniel had traveled repeatedly during those months. He claimed he was handling a corporate merger in Chicago.
“What city?” Claire asked.
Nathan understood.
“We don’t know.”
Claire looked at the recorder.
“My husband knows.”
“He does.”
“Then find him.”
“We are trying.”
Nathan’s phone vibrated.
He walked into the hall to answer.
Claire and Elena sat in silence.
After a moment, Elena spoke.
“My husband’s name was Michael. He died in a car accident two years after our treatment failed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He believed Hawthorne had lied to us. I told him grief was making him paranoid.”
Claire watched her twist her wedding ring.
“Was it an accident?”
Elena did not answer.
Nathan returned.
His expression told Claire something had changed.
“We received a call from Daniel.”
“Where is he?”
“He used a scrambled line.”
“What does he want?”
Nathan looked toward Elena.
“He wants to trade Dr. Vale for Claire.”
Claire’s skin went cold.
“Dr. Vale is alive?”
“Daniel claims she is.”
Elena stood.
“Why Claire?”
Nathan held Claire’s gaze.
“Because he says she is carrying the only witness who cannot testify.”
Claire’s hand went to her stomach.
“A baby cannot testify.”
May you like
Nathan’s eyes moved toward the fire-damaged recorder.
“Not with words.”
