Chapter 2
The woman standing in the doorway looked as though she had been running for her life.
Her hospital gown was hidden beneath an oversized gray coat.
Her hair hung in tangled strands around her face.
She couldn't have been older than twenty-eight.
And she was staring at my husband as if he were the last person on earth she had trusted.
"Christopher!" she screamed. "Where is my daughter?"
I instinctively held Daisy closer.
The young woman saw her.
Everything about her changed.
"Oh, thank God."
She stumbled forward.
"Please. Let me see her."
One security officer reached for her arm.
"Ma'am, you need to calm down."
"Don't touch me!"
She pulled away.
"That's my baby!"
I looked at Dr. Miller.
"Who is she?"
He rubbed his forehead.
"Mrs. Hayes, this is Leah Morgan."
"Leah Morgan?"
He nodded.
"Daisy's birth mother."
The room spun.
I looked down at the tiny girl in my arms.
Then at the terrified young woman.
I had spent the last hour imagining a future with Daisy.
But now the woman who had carried her was standing three feet away.
And she was crying.
"Please," Leah whispered. "I just want to know she's okay."
I stepped forward.
"Of course."
I gently turned Daisy so Leah could see her face.
Leah began sobbing.
"Hi, baby girl."
She touched Daisy's tiny foot.
"I'm here."
Something inside my chest tightened.
This wasn't a woman who had casually abandoned her child.
This was a mother who had been separated from her newborn.
And she was terrified.
I turned toward Christopher.
"Tell me what's going on."
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Leah stared at him.
"You said you were going to protect us."
Christopher finally spoke.
"I was trying to."
"Then why did they tell me she was already gone?"
Dr. Miller stepped between them.
"Everyone, please sit down."
Leah shook her head.
"No. I am done sitting quietly."
She looked at me.
"Mrs. Hayes, I don't know what your husband told you, but I never agreed to give Daisy away permanently."
My heart stopped.
"What?"
"I was told she'd be placed somewhere safe until I could leave the hospital."
I turned toward Christopher.
"You told me we had permission to bring her home."
"I thought we did."
"You thought?"
His jaw tightened.
"I signed what they gave me."
Dr. Miller looked sharply at him.
"That paperwork is being investigated."
A cold silence followed.
Then Leah said something strange.
"They told me she was already promised to someone."
I felt Daisy move against my chest.
"Promised?"
Leah nodded.
"Before she was even born."
Dr. Miller asked the security officers to wait outside.
When the door closed, Leah sat beside me.
She looked exhausted.
I carefully handed Daisy to her.
Leah held her daughter so naturally that I had to look away.
It hurt.
And I hated myself for feeling hurt.
Because Daisy belonged with a mother who loved her.
Leah kissed her forehead.
"I thought I'd lost you."
I swallowed my tears.
"Nobody should have told me I could take her without your permission."
Leah looked up.
Her expression softened.
"You didn't know?"
"No."
She glanced at Christopher.
"Then he didn't tell you about Westbridge?"
My husband closed his eyes.
And I felt another piece of my marriage crack.
"What about Westbridge?"
Leah stared at me.
"That's where all of this started."
Dr. Miller pulled up a chair.
"Mrs. Hayes, before we continue, I need to explain something."
He told me the initial genetic match was not a routine hospital test.
When Daisy was born, her delivery record triggered an alert in a laboratory database connected to a decades-old fertility investigation.
The alert led hospital staff to request access to archived genetic material.
That material carried my name.
The first comparison suggested Daisy was my biological daughter.
But the hospital needed an independent test to confirm it.
I stared at him.
"How could they have my genetic material?"
"We're trying to determine that."
I slowly turned toward Christopher.
"Except my husband already knows."
He didn't deny it.
"Rebecca, please."
"No."
My voice shook.
"No more secrets."
For twenty-eight years, I had trusted this man.
I had loved him when we lived in a one-bedroom apartment.
I had worked two jobs when his business failed.
I had stood beside him through funerals, sickness, and every difficult season of our lives.
Now I was sitting in a hospital room with a newborn who might be biologically mine.
And my husband knew why.
Christopher sank into a chair.
"Twenty-five years ago," he began, "you had surgery at Westbridge."
"I remember."
"What you don't know is that the clinic was conducting a secret research program."
I stared at him.
"What kind of research?"
He rubbed his face.
"Egg preservation. Embryo development. Experimental reproductive treatment."
A sick feeling rose in my throat.
"Christopher."
He looked up.
"They approached me while you were recovering."
"Why you?"
"Because you were under anesthesia. They said they needed a family representative to sign a research authorization."
I went completely still.
"What did you sign?"
His voice dropped.
"Permission to preserve reproductive tissue."
For a moment, I couldn't understand the words.
Then I understood them too well.
"You signed permission for them to take my eggs?"
He looked down.
I stood so suddenly my chair scraped the floor.
"WITHOUT ASKING ME?"
"Rebecca, they told me the tissue would otherwise be discarded!"
"You had no right!"
"I know."
"No, you don't!"
My voice broke.
"You let strangers take something from my body while I was unconscious!"
Leah tightened her arms around Daisy.
Dr. Miller spoke quietly.
"Mrs. Hayes, a spouse's signature would not have authorized egg retrieval without your informed consent."
I stared at Christopher.
"So what happened?"
He shook his head.
"I didn't know they actually used anything."
"Then why did you know about Daisy?"
Christopher reached into his jacket.
He removed a folded envelope.
"I received this six months ago."
Inside was a photocopied document.
Across the top were the words:
WESTBRIDGE ARCHIVE — EMBRYO RECORD.
Below them was my maiden name.
Rebecca Bennett.
And beneath that was a date from twenty-five years earlier.
I could barely breathe.
Christopher continued.
"Someone contacted me. They said an embryo created from your eggs had been transferred to a woman."
I looked at Leah.
She nodded slowly.
"Me."
The room became unbearably quiet.
"Why?" I whispered.
Leah's face crumpled.
"Because I thought I was carrying a baby for a loving family."
She wiped her eyes.
"But three months ago, I found out there was no family."
I stared at her.
"What do you mean?"
Leah looked directly at me.
"The people who arranged my pregnancy weren't planning to give Daisy to her parents."
Christopher gripped the edge of his chair.
Leah began trembling.
"They were planning to sell her."
I felt the blood leave my face.
"Sell her?"
Leah nodded.
"And the man running everything is coming here tonight."
Dr. Miller stood.
"Who?"
Leah looked toward the closed door.
"Dr. Victor Lang."
Christopher made a strangled sound.
I recognized the name immediately.
Victor Lang had been the director of Westbridge.
The same doctor who had operated on me twenty-five years ago.
Leah clutched Daisy closer.
"He's the reason I ran."
Then her eyes filled with fresh terror.
"There's something else."
I leaned toward her.
"What?"
"He knows you're her biological mother."
My heart hammered.
"How?"
Leah swallowed.
"Because he has been looking for you for months."
At that exact moment, someone's footsteps stopped outside our door.
A man's voice spoke calmly to the security officer.
"I'm Dr. Victor Lang."
I froze.
May you like
Then the man continued.
"I believe you have a child in there who belongs to me."
