Chapter 8 - The Slap That Never Landed
Grace moved before she thought.
The champagne tray slipped from her hand as she crossed the ballroom.
Victoria’s palm began to fall.
Grace caught her wrist.
The tray struck the floor.
“Don’t touch her!”
The words echoed beneath the chandeliers.
The ballroom fell silent.
Everything unfolded exactly as the hidden camera would later show.
Victoria’s outrage.
Grace’s refusal to release her.
Dominic stepping from the crowd.
Margaret revealing Victoria’s threat.
The demand for security footage.
The discovery that the main recording had been deleted.
But one detail had not been planned.
Victoria ran.
She pushed through two guests and sprinted toward the east exit.
Lucas intercepted her near the doors.
She struck him with a metal object hidden inside her evening bag.
Lucas stumbled.
Victoria reached the corridor.
Grace followed.
“Stop!”
Victoria kicked off her heels and ran faster.
Dominic shouted orders behind them.
The corridor divided near the banquet kitchens.
Victoria turned left.
Grace knew the route ended near the laundry elevators unless a service door had been unlocked.
It was unlocked.
Victoria disappeared into the freight elevator.
Grace reached the doors as they closed.
She saw Harold Crane inside.
He held the elevator controls.
Their eyes met.
Then the doors sealed.
Grace hit the call button.
Nothing happened.
Dominic and Lucas arrived seconds later.
“Where did they go?”
“Freight elevator.”
Lucas checked the indicator.
“It’s descending.”
“To the loading dock?” Dominic asked.
“No. Sublevel three.”
“The chapel,” Grace said.
Dominic drew a weapon from Lucas’s shoulder holster.
“Lock the hotel.”
Lucas activated a secondary radio.
“All exits sealed. No vehicle movement.”
They used the emergency stairs.
When they reached sublevel three, the freight elevator stood empty.
A trail of blood led toward the ruined chapel corridor.
Not Victoria’s blood.
Harold’s.
They found him near the memorial room.
He was alive, but a knife had been driven into his side.
Grace knelt beside him.
“Who did this?”
Harold coughed.
“Victoria.”
“Where did she go?”
He pointed toward the chamber where the wooden cradle had stood.
Dominic leaned closer.
“Why were you helping her?”
Harold’s face twisted with pain.
“She promised to protect my family.”
“From whom?”
“Vale.”
Grace looked toward the darkness.
“What does Judge Vale want?”
Harold’s hand closed around her sleeve.
“The camera.”
“He already deleted the footage.”
“Not tonight’s camera. Elena’s.”
Dominic glanced at Grace.
“Why?”
Harold struggled to breathe.
“It recorded more than the bedroom. Elena moved it between chairs. She recorded the hospital.”
Grace felt cold.
“The child exchange?”
Harold nodded.
“Vale was there.”
“Where is the rest of the footage?”
“I don’t know. Victoria said the camera unit contains a location code.”
Lucas examined the hidden device they had recovered. A sequence of numbers had been etched near the battery compartment.
He entered them into his tablet.
“They are not coordinates.”
Dominic looked toward Harold.
“What are they?”
Harold’s eyes began to close.
“Patient… number.”
Grace shook him.
“Whose patient number?”
“Your mother’s.”
His hand fell.
Grace checked his pulse.
“He’s alive.”
Lucas called for the medical team.
Dominic studied the code.
“Elena’s patient number.”
Grace remembered the hospital bracelet from the cradle.
Baby Boy Miller.
She removed it from her pocket.
The number printed beneath the name matched the first eight digits on the camera.
Lucas entered the full sequence into a secure medical archive search.
The result appeared.
Saint Catherine’s Hospital, 1999.
Record status: sealed by judicial order.
Authorizing judge: Conrad Vale.
Dominic stared at the screen.
“He sealed the records himself.”
Grace looked toward the empty chamber.
“Because they contained proof.”
A faint mechanical sound came from behind the memorial wall.
Lucas raised his weapon.
The hidden door opened.
Victoria stood inside the small room, holding a lighter in one hand and a stack of old medical files in the other.
“If you come closer, everything burns.”
Dominic aimed the gun.
“You won’t survive the first flame.”
Victoria smiled.
“You still think survival is my goal.”
She held up one file.
The label read Dominic DeLuca.
Another read Grace Miller.
A third carried no name.
Only a date.
The same date printed on both Dominic’s and Grace’s birth certificates.
Grace frowned.
“We weren’t born on the same day.”
Victoria’s smile deepened.
“According to the truth, you were.”
Dominic looked at Grace.
“That’s impossible. I am sixteen years older.”
Victoria shook her head.
“Dominic is sixteen years older.”
She tapped the unnamed file.
“But the child Elena gave birth to was not.”
The words settled over them.
Grace stared at the hospital files.
“What are you saying?”
“I am saying the story Elena discovered was only the first layer.”
“Dominic isn’t her son?”
“Oh, he is connected to Elena.”
“How?”
Victoria flicked the lighter.
A flame appeared.
“Lower the weapon.”
Dominic did not move.
Victoria held the flame near the documents.
Grace stepped forward.
“I’ll exchange the camera for the files.”
Dominic turned sharply.
“No.”
Victoria considered the offer.
“The camera first.”
Grace removed the device from her pocket.
Dominic stared at her.
“You kept it?”
“I never gave Lucas the original.”
She placed it on the floor and slid it toward Victoria.
Victoria bent to retrieve it.
The moment her eyes dropped, Grace threw the hospital bracelet.
It struck the lighter from Victoria’s hand.
Dominic crossed the room in two steps.
Victoria grabbed the unnamed file and tore it open.
Photographs scattered across the floor.
Lucas restrained her.
Grace reached for the nearest photograph.
It showed three newborn babies lying side by side beneath hospital warming lights.
Two had identification cards.
Dominic DeLuca.
Grace Miller.
The third card had been turned facedown.
May you like
On the back of the photograph, Elena had written:
Only one child left the hospital under the correct name.
