Chapter 6 - The Child in the Basement
Daniel threw himself against the door.
It would not open.
A bitter chemical smell filled the room.
“Cover Noah’s mouth,” he shouted.
I pressed my sleeve over our son’s nose while Daniel grabbed a metal stool and smashed it against the observation window.
The first strike cracked the glass.
The second opened a jagged hole.
An alarm began ringing.
Daniel cleared the remaining shards with his jacket and lifted Noah through the frame.
I followed.
We stumbled into the corridor as white vapor spread beneath the door.
Footsteps approached.
A security guard rounded the corner.
He saw us and reached for his radio.
Daniel tackled him.
The two men crashed into an empty bassinet. I pulled Noah behind the wall.
“Run to the elevator,” Daniel yelled.
The guard struck him across the face.
I grabbed a fire extinguisher and sprayed the guard. Daniel tore away his radio and shoved him inside the locked room.
We reached the elevator, but Dr. Shaw’s card no longer worked.
A second alarm sounded.
Daniel led us toward a service staircase.
Halfway up, Noah stopped.
“I hear a baby.”
“We have to go,” I said.
“It’s crying.”
Daniel listened.
A faint wail came from below the staircase.
We descended to a maintenance landing. Behind a stack of laundry carts was a reinforced door.
The stolen guard’s radio activated.
“Unit Three, secure the lower archive. The Carter family is inside.”
Daniel removed the guard’s key ring and tried several keys.
The fourth unlocked the door.
Inside was a small room with medical equipment.
A newborn lay in a portable incubator.
For one impossible second, I believed she was Sophie.
Then I noticed the child’s thick reddish hair.
A hospital bracelet encircled her ankle.
BABY GIRL MORRISON.
A woman in a hospital gown lay unconscious on a cot beside her.
I checked the woman’s breathing.
“She’s alive.”
Daniel examined the intravenous line in her arm.
“She’s sedated.”
Noah stared at the baby.
“That’s the baby the lady brought back.”
I looked at him.
“The baby brought into my room?”
He nodded.
“No. She brought this one first, but another man said she was wrong.”
“How many babies were there?”
“Three.”
The answer chilled me.
“What happened to the third?”
Noah closed his eyes, trying to remember.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel found a clipboard attached to the incubator.
The papers listed blood types, genetic markers and identification numbers. Several infant names had been crossed out.
At the bottom was Sophie’s name.
Beside it appeared a designation:
CANDIDATE A-17. MATERNAL LINE CONFIRMED. PATERNAL LINE UNRESOLVED.
Daniel read the words twice.
“What does paternal line unresolved mean?” I asked.
He did not answer.
“Daniel.”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying again.”
The sedated woman groaned.
Her eyes opened slightly.
“Lily,” she whispered.
“Is that your baby?” I asked.
She struggled to focus.
“They said she died.”
“No. She’s here.”
Tears slid down her cheeks.
A loud crash came from the corridor.
Daniel lifted the infant carrier.
“We need to take them both.”
The woman was too weak to stand.
Together, we placed her in a wheelchair and pushed her toward the service exit.
Two guards appeared near the elevator.
I pulled the fire alarm.
Sprinklers erupted across the lower level. Staff poured into the corridors as evacuation doors automatically unlocked.
We blended into the confusion.
Outside, Daniel called an ambulance from a prepaid phone purchased at the hospital gift shop. We left the woman and her baby near the emergency entrance where medical staff could find them.
I photographed every document before returning the clipboard.
As we drove away, the building’s alarms continued to scream.
Noah slept against the car window.
Daniel said nothing.
I examined the image of Sophie’s file.
Paternal line unresolved.
A question I had never considered rose inside me.
“What blood type are you?”
Daniel kept his eyes on the road.
“O positive.”
I looked at Sophie’s birth record.
According to the hospital, our daughter was AB negative.
My blood type was O negative.
An O-negative mother and an O-positive father could not produce an AB-negative child.
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The medical record did not merely suggest Sophie had been switched.
It suggested Daniel could not be her biological father.
