PART 4
I read the message three times.
“Tomorrow, bring Lucy to the hospital alone.”
My first instinct was anger.
My second was fear.
But my third was something I hadn’t expected.
Clarity.
“No,” I said.
Daniel looked at me.
“What?”
“I’m not taking her anywhere.”
Hannah hugged Lucy tighter.
“But they know where we live.”
“Then we don’t go home tonight.”
Daniel nodded immediately.
“My place has security.”
Hannah hesitated.
“What if that’s what they want?”
Nobody answered.
Because she was right.
We didn’t know who we were dealing with.
We didn’t know how long someone had been watching Lucy.
And we didn’t know why a little girl’s medical records were worth hiding for nearly two years.
Then my phone rang again.
This time, it was the police.
An officer asked me to come to the station with the photographs and messages.
We left together.
Noah sat beside me in the back seat, still clutching the little red dress’s receipt.
He had kept it in his pocket since the day he bought it.
At the station, detectives examined everything.
The photographs.
The phone number.
The hospital bracelet.
The altered records.
Then one detective asked Daniel a question.
“Where did you originally report your daughter’s death?”
Daniel answered.
“St. Mary’s Medical Center.”
The detective looked at his computer.
“That hospital closed its maternity department eighteen months ago.”
Daniel nodded.
“We know.”
The detective frowned.
“No. You don’t understand.”
He turned the monitor toward us.
“The doctor listed on your daughter’s death certificate never worked there.”
Hannah stood up.
“What?”
The detective pointed to the signature.
“This physician’s license number belongs to someone who retired seven years before Lucy was born.”
The room went silent.
Someone had forged everything.
The death certificate.
The medical records.
The father’s information.
Everything.
Then the detective opened another file.
“There is one more thing.”
He showed us a hospital security photograph.
It was grainy and dated two years earlier.
A woman was walking through a hospital hallway carrying a newborn baby.
The detective enlarged the image.
Hannah gasped.
She recognized the woman immediately.
“That’s my sister.”
Nobody spoke.
Her sister had told everyone she was living in another state when Lucy was born.
But the photograph proved she had been at the hospital.
And she was carrying Lucy.
Hannah covered her mouth.
“My sister knew.”
Daniel stared at the screen.
“Why would she do this?”
The detective leaned back.
“We don’t know yet.”
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed almost immediately.
“Where?”
He listened.
“Lock down the evidence room.”
Then he hung up.
“What happened?” I asked.
He looked at me.
“The storage facility where the original hospital records were kept just caught fire.”
Daniel stood.
“Arson?”
The detective didn’t answer.
He didn’t have to.
Someone was destroying evidence.
And they were getting desperate.
That night, we stayed at a secure family shelter.
Hannah refused to let Lucy out of her arms.
Noah slept beside me on a small couch.
Around 3:00 a.m., I woke to the sound of my phone vibrating.
One new message.
No number.
Just an image.
I opened it.
My heart stopped.
It was a photograph of Noah sleeping beside me.
Taken only minutes earlier.
I looked toward the window.
Nothing.
Then I noticed something underneath the photograph.
A message:
“You protected Lucy. Now protect your son.”
I immediately woke Daniel.
He read the message.
His face hardened.
“This has to stop.”
Then he looked at me.
“I know where they’re taking the children.”
“What?”
“The old hospital.”
I stared at him.
“The one that closed?”
He nodded.
“The maternity wing wasn’t actually abandoned.”
My stomach tightened.
“What is inside?”
Daniel looked toward the sleeping children.
“Records.”
Then he lowered his voice.
“And possibly other children.”
We were silent.
Because suddenly the mystery wasn’t about one little girl.
It might have been much bigger.
And before sunrise, we made a decision.
We were going back to that hospital.
Not alone.
Not secretly.
With the police.
Because if someone had spent two years hiding the truth about Lucy…
we were finally going to find out why.
