Chapter 2 - The Name Beneath the Blanket
The men outside the NICU doors disappeared before hospital security arrived.
That frightened Emily more than if they had remained.
The locking system had activated for forty-seven seconds.
Then every door returned to normal.
Security claimed there had been a software malfunction.
Arthur did not believe them.
Neither did Emily.
He still held the infant.
The child slept against his chest as though she had known him all her short life.
Emily lowered her voice.
"Give her back to me."
Arthur looked at the locked doors.
"Who were those men?"
"I don't know."
"That's not true."
Emily met his gaze.
"No. It's not."
She carefully took the baby and returned her to the incubator.
Arthur hated how empty his arms felt afterward.
Emily gestured toward a small consultation room.
"Come with me."
They entered.
Emily closed the door.
Then she removed a thin folder from beneath her scrub jacket.
Arthur stared.
"You were carrying that?"
"I took it after I saw the note in her file."
"What note?"
Emily opened the folder.
Most of the pages contained medical terminology Arthur barely understood.
Gestational age.
Oxygen saturation.
Low birth weight.
Neonatal respiratory distress.
But one page contained something simpler.
A laboratory report.
Genetic compatibility.
Emily pointed to an entry.
PATERNAL REFERENCE SAMPLE: DS-0917.
Arthur stared at the initials.
Daniel Sterling.
His heart began pounding.
"Daniel died seventeen years ago."
Emily nodded.
"Apparently someone has been using a stored genetic sample."
"For what?"
"That's what I don't understand."
She turned another page.
There was no mother listed.
Instead:
GESTATIONAL CARRIER: CONFIDENTIAL.
LEGAL GUARDIANSHIP: PENDING.
AUTHORIZED BY: STERLING FAMILY BIOMEDICAL TRUST.
Arthur looked up sharply.
"What the hell is that?"
"I don't know."
"You're a nurse here."
"I work in neonatal care. I don't manage private research trusts."
Arthur pushed back from the table.
"Where are the baby's parents?"
Emily looked at the floor.
"Nobody came with her."
"What?"
"She was transferred here forty-eight hours ago from a private facility outside the county."
"Which facility?"
"It isn't listed."
"Who brought her?"
"A transport team."
"And then?"
"They left."
Arthur stared at her.
"You're saying somebody manufactured a child with a dead soldier's DNA and dropped her in a hospital?"
Emily looked disturbed.
"I am saying I don't know what happened."
Arthur pointed toward the NICU.
"But her name is Sterling."
"Technically that name may be provisional."
"Why?"
"Because no birth certificate has been filed."
Arthur sat slowly.
His mind moved backward seventeen years.
Daniel telling jokes in an armored vehicle.
Daniel mailing letters to a younger sister named Rebecca.
Daniel screaming when the convoy exploded.
Daniel dragging another soldier from burning wreckage.
Then the night everything changed.
Arthur whispered, "Daniel told me his father collected blood samples from everyone in the family."
Emily frowned.
"What?"
"He said the Sterling Medical Institute had some hereditary disease study."
"What disease?"
"He never told me."
Arthur rubbed his face.
"Daniel hated his father."
"Why?"
"He said the family treated people like assets."
Emily glanced through the window at the infant.
Arthur noticed.
"What's wrong?"
"There is something else."
She pulled another sheet from the folder.
A newborn screening summary.
Handwritten at the bottom:
SUBJECT S-17 SHOWS EXPECTED AUTONOMIC RESPONSE TO CONTACT WITH A.V.
Arthur stared.
"What is autonomic response?"
"Heart rate. Breathing. Stress regulation."
Arthur's voice hardened.
"They expected her to react to me?"
Emily nodded slowly.
"That's what it sounds like."
"How?"
"I don't know."
He stood.
"Someone knew I would come."
A knock sounded at the door.
Emily immediately closed the folder.
A man entered.
Mid-sixties.
Silver hair.
Tailored charcoal suit.
His expression conveyed the relaxed authority of someone accustomed to owning every room he entered.
"Arthur Vance."
Arthur knew the face.
He had seen it in newspapers.
Television interviews.
Hospital fundraising advertisements.
Dr. Richard Sterling.
Daniel's father.
Richard smiled.
"It has been a very long time."
Arthur did not return the smile.
"You buried your son seventeen years ago."
Richard's gaze shifted briefly toward the NICU.
"Yes."
Arthur stepped closer.
"Then tell me why his daughter is lying in that incubator."
May you like
For the first time, Richard Sterling's smile vanished.
"Because Daniel was never buried."
