Chapter 14 - The Baby Who Vanished)
Emma did not sleep.
By midnight, Daniel and Diane knew about RB-17.
By one, Caleb did too, despite everyone originally agreeing he should be kept out of it.
His argument was simple.
“I’m the one who found the box.”
Nobody had a good response.
Michael sent every document he possessed.
Most were incomplete.
Old scans.
Letters.
Lab reports.
One handwritten note from Robert Vale.
RB-17 follow-up transferred.
No destination.
No name.
No explanation.
Diane sat at the dining table staring at the report.
“I remember another baby.”
Everyone looked at her.
“What?” Emma asked.
Mom pressed both hands against her temples.
“The night you were born.”
“Another baby where?”
“Nursery.”
Emma waited.
Diane struggled to retrieve details from eighteen years earlier.
“There was a woman in the room beside mine. I heard her crying.”
“Because of the baby?”
“I think so.”
“Did you know her?”
“No.”
“Name?”
“I don’t remember.”
Caleb searched the old documents again.
“What does kinship consistency mean?”
Daniel shook his head.
“Could be a research term. We need an expert.”
Emma had another possibility.
“What if RB stands for the baby’s initials?”
Mom looked at her.
“R.B.”
“Could be.”
They searched archived birth announcements.
Public records.
Newspapers.
Nothing obvious appeared.
Michael called again.
“I found an old voicemail.”
Emma put him on speaker.
“What voicemail?”
“From Robert.”
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
“Play it.”
Static filled the speaker.
Then an older male voice.
Michael, this is Robert. I need the Reed material returned. There has been renewed interest in the Bennett file. Do not contact Diane. Do not contact the girl. If anyone asks about the second infant, you know nothing.
The message ended.
No one spoke.
Caleb finally said:
“The Bennett file.”
Diane stared at him.
“Laura Bennett.”
Daniel nodded.
Emma’s stomach tightened.
“What if RB doesn’t mean Robert Bennett.”
Mom whispered:
“What if it means Reed Bennett?”
Silence.
Caleb frowned.
“That makes no sense.”
Emma looked at the old photograph of the nurse.
Laura Bennett.
The woman who had held Emma after birth.
“What happened to Laura?”
Daniel opened his laptop.
“We find out.”
It took less than an hour to find something they had missed.
Laura Bennett had not simply left the hospital.
A local newspaper from seventeen years earlier reported her disappearance.
Thirty-one-year-old nurse missing.
Car found near a train station.
No evidence of foul play.
Family asks for information.
The article included a photograph.
The same woman Diane remembered.
Blond hair.
Blue eyes.
Silver leaf necklace.
Emma read the story twice.
“She disappeared one year after I was born.”
“Yes,” Daniel said.
“Was she ever found?”
No.
Michael sounded stunned.
“I never knew this.”
Diane looked at the speaker.
“Robert never told you?”
“No.”
Caleb continued searching.
He found a later article.
Six months after Laura disappeared, a body had been discovered in another state.
Identification was uncertain.
Eventually police concluded it was not Laura.
The case went cold.
Emma felt the mystery expanding beyond anything she wanted.
She had wanted the truth about her health.
Then about her father.
Now she had a missing nurse, a second infant, questionable genetic research and someone watching her.
“I’m done tonight.”
Daniel nodded immediately.
“Good.”
Emma looked at Mom.
“Tomorrow we go to the police.”
Diane hesitated.
Emma saw it.
Mom corrected herself.
“Yes.”
No argument.
No secrecy.
“Yes.”
The next morning, they met with a detective.
They provided the messages.
Photographs.
Medical documents.
Michael’s voicemail.
Hospital audit information.
The detective listened carefully.
He warned them that old medical research misconduct and a missing-person case did not automatically connect.
Emma understood.
“But someone photographed me two days ago.”
“Yes.”
“And accessed my medical records.”
“Yes.”
“And knew we found the box.”
“Yes.”
The detective nodded.
“That part is current. That is what we can work with first.”
Emma felt relieved.
Not because the mystery was solved.
Because someone outside the family finally acknowledged that it was real.
The detective took a copy of the RB-17 report.
Before leaving, he asked Diane one final question.
“Mrs. Mercer, was there anything unusual about Emma immediately after birth besides the breathing problem?”
Diane thought.
Then her face changed.
“What?”
Diane looked at Emma.
“When they brought you back to me, your hospital bracelet had been replaced.”
Emma frowned.
“Is that unusual?”
“I asked Laura about it.”
“What did she say?”
“She said the original bracelet had become damaged.”
The detective leaned forward.
“Do you remember anything written on the replacement?”
Diane closed her eyes.
After several seconds, she whispered:
“There was a B.”
Caleb stopped moving.
“What?”
“Your name was correct. Emma Reed.”
Diane looked increasingly frightened.
“But beneath it, there was a handwritten B.”
Emma’s pulse quickened.
“Bennett?”
“I don’t know.”
That afternoon, Michael sent another message.
Not a document.
An address.
He wrote:
I found where Laura Bennett was living before she disappeared.
May you like
Emma looked at Daniel.
The address was only forty-three miles away.
