Chapter 12 - Caroline’s Final Selection
Emma confronted Caleb the next morning.
He stood near the hospital window, watching reporters gather outside. Someone had leaked information about the Mercer trust and the emergency custody petition.
“Why did Caroline choose me?” Emma asked.
Caleb looked at the message on her phone.
“I don’t know.”
“That isn’t true.”
“I know pieces.”
“Then give me the pieces.”
He closed the blinds.
“Your mother worked at Mercer Medical Research Center.”
Emma stared at him.
“My mother was an accountant for an insurance company.”
“That’s what she told you.”
“She died when I was twelve.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Caroline kept employee records. Your mother’s name appears under a different department.”
Emma felt anger rise beneath her exhaustion.
“Why would she lie?”
“Maybe she was protecting you.”
“From whom?”
Caleb took a folded page from his coat.
It was a copy of an employment document.
The name at the top read Anna Bennett, Emma’s mother.
Position: Clinical Records Auditor.
Emma read the date.
Her mother had worked at the facility until three weeks before Richard Mercer’s supposed accident.
“What was she auditing?”
“Patient files connected to an internal research project.”
“What project?”
“The name was removed from every record I found.”
“You said Caroline selected me.”
“Your mother sent Caroline evidence before she died.”
“What evidence?”
“I never saw it.”
Emma looked toward Noah.
“Jason knew?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Valerie?”
“Yes.”
The door opened.
A hospital administrator entered with a county investigator and Lena Park, the nurse who had tried to visit Emma at the cabin.
Lena looked shaken.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have pushed harder.”
“You called me?”
“Three times. Jason answered your phone twice. He said you were asleep.”
Emma remembered seeing no missed calls.
Lena continued.
“On my third call, a woman answered. She identified herself as your medical proxy.”
“Valerie.”
“She canceled all home visits and said you had transferred care to a private doctor.”
“What doctor?”
“Dr. Nathan Vale.”
Caleb’s expression changed.
“Do you know him?” Emma asked.
“He worked with my father.”
The investigator placed a folder on the table.
“We checked the licensing database. Nathan Vale died seven years ago.”
Emma felt the same cold fear she had felt in the nursery.
“Then who spoke to Lena?”
“We don’t know.”
The investigator opened the folder.
“We recovered messages from Mr. Mercer’s hidden phone. Most were sent to a contact saved as N. Vale.”
“Jason was speaking to someone using a dead doctor’s name,” Caleb said.
The investigator nodded.
“The messages discuss your medication schedule, Mrs. Mercer’s trust, and the lodge alibi.”
“Is that enough to arrest Jason?”
“We can detain him for questioning, but his attorney claims he believed the medicine came from a licensed medical consultant.”
“He abandoned me.”
“That is also under investigation.”
Emma looked at the clock.
Jason’s emergency custody hearing would begin in less than two hours.
The county investigator received a call and stepped into the hallway.
When he returned, his expression had changed.
“Jason Mercer cannot be located.”
“What about Valerie?” Emma asked.
“Also missing.”
Caleb went to the window and reopened the blinds.
A dark SUV moved slowly past the reporters outside.
It was the same model that had escaped through the cabin’s lower garage.
The rear passenger window lowered.
Valerie sat inside.
She looked directly toward Emma’s hospital room.
Then she lifted Noah’s blue hospital identification band between two fingers.
Emma turned toward the bassinet.
May you like
Noah was still sleeping safely inside.
But the spare identification band attached to his file was gone.
