Chapter 5
Adrian ran from the boardroom before anyone could stop him.
Officer Ruiz followed.
“Who had access to the hospital floor?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think. Who knew Noah was there?”
“Vanessa. Marcus. My mother. The police. The company.”
Ruiz called the hospital while Adrian drove.
Security footage showed a woman in blue scrubs pushing Noah’s crib into a service elevator.
Her face was hidden by a mask.
A black SUV waited behind the hospital.
The license plate had been stolen.
Claire met them near the emergency entrance. Lily stood beside her, clutching the stuffed rabbit.
“I only looked away for a minute,” Claire sobbed. “A nurse said Noah needed another test.”
“This isn’t your fault,” Adrian said.
“It feels like it is.”
Lily tugged his sleeve.
“The nurse smelled like oranges.”
Adrian looked down.
“What?”
“The bad nurse. She smelled like orange flowers.”
Adrian knew that scent.
Vanessa wore an expensive orange-blossom perfume every day.
“But Vanessa is in custody,” Claire said.
Ruiz checked his phone.
“Not anymore.”
A judge had approved Vanessa’s emergency release after Marcus’s associate argued that she needed medical treatment for injuries Adrian had caused.
She had disappeared twenty minutes later.
Adrian felt rage rising, but Lily was watching him.
He forced himself to stay calm.
“Where would she take Noah?”
Claire’s eyes widened.
“The lake house.”
Their father had owned a cabin two hours north. It was hidden behind miles of private woodland and did not appear in recent family records.
Marcus knew about it.
So did Eleanor.
Police alerted local authorities.
Adrian was told to remain at the hospital.
He refused.
“That is my son.”
“You could make the situation more dangerous,” Ruiz warned.
“Vanessa wants something. She’ll contact me.”
Adrian was right.
His phone rang ten minutes later.
Vanessa’s face appeared on the screen.
She was inside a dark room.
Noah cried somewhere nearby.
“Give me control of the trust,” she said.
“Let me see him.”
“You don’t give orders anymore.”
“If you hurt him—”
“You’ll do what? Hit me again?”
Her voice was cold.
Adrian lowered his tone.
“What do you want me to sign?”
“Everything. The company, the estate, and full authority over the children’s accounts.”
“You never cared about them.”
“I cared about the life you promised me.”
“I promised you a family.”
“I didn’t want to raise another woman’s daughter.”
Lily heard her.
The little girl flinched as though she had been struck.
Adrian turned away from her.
“Send the documents.”
“You have thirty minutes.”
The call ended.
Ruiz had recorded it.
“Can you trace her?”
“She bounced the signal through several towers. But we heard a train horn in the background.”
Claire opened a map.
“There’s no railway near the lake house.”
“Then it’s a trap,” Adrian said.
Lily approached with her rabbit.
“Daddy, Noah has a bracelet.”
The hospital had placed an electronic patient band around his ankle.
Ruiz contacted hospital security.
The band transmitted only within a limited medical tracking network.
But one technician discovered it had briefly connected to a clinic’s receiver eighteen miles east.
The clinic had closed years ago.
Adrian recognized the address.
It had belonged to his father.
Police surrounded the abandoned building before sunset.
Adrian waited inside an unmarked vehicle with Claire and Lily.
Officers entered.
Minutes later, Ruiz emerged carrying Noah.
Adrian ran to him.
Noah was alive.
He held his son so tightly that the baby began to cry.
It was the most beautiful sound Adrian had ever heard.
“Where’s Vanessa?” he asked.
Ruiz shook his head.
“She wasn’t inside.”
They had found only a phone playing a recorded video.
Then Lily screamed from the vehicle.
Adrian turned.
Claire was unconscious against the door.
A hand reached from the back seat and pulled Lily into the shadows.
The vehicle sped away before Adrian could reach it.
Vanessa had never intended to keep Noah.
May you like
She had traded one child for another.
And this time, she had taken the child who could testify against everyone.
