Chapter 6
Chloe held a hospital badge in one hand.
Not hers.
Dr. Porter’s.
For one second, nobody moved.
Then Hannah screamed, “Security!”
Chloe ran.
Agent Monroe chased her down the hallway.
I tried to sit up too fast, and pain ripped across my side.
Rebecca held me down.
“Olivia, stay in the bed.”
“I need to know where she’s going.”
“She wants you scared.”
“She succeeded.”
Chloe slipped into a stairwell.
Security blocked the exits.
They caught her two floors down.
She was carrying a small cooler bag.
Inside were syringes, forged discharge forms, and a newborn ankle bracelet printed with a fake name.
Baby Bennett.
My daughter’s planned new identity.
When Agent Monroe told me, I did not cry.
I went quiet.
That frightened Hannah.
“Liv?”
I stared at the wall.
“They were going to take her from my body and rename her.”
Rebecca sat beside me.
“They failed.”
“Not yet.”
My blood pressure rose that night.
Dr. Ellis ordered calm.
I almost laughed in her face.
Calm was impossible when every hallway sounded like footsteps coming for my child.
At 3:00 AM, Chloe asked to speak to me.
Everyone said no.
I said yes.
Behind glass.
With Agent Monroe, Rebecca, and Hannah present.
Chloe sat in an interview room wearing borrowed clothes and no makeup.
She looked younger without the smile.
“You ruined my life,” she said.
I stared at her.
“You came to my baby shower pregnant with my husband’s child.”
“He said you trapped him.”
“With infertility?”
Her face twisted.
“He said the baby wasn’t really his.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“He said you used a donor and lied. He said your daughter would steal everything from his real son.”
My stomach turned.
Of course.
Julian had made both of us villains in different stories.
“You believed him.”
“I wanted to.”
That honesty was almost worse.
Chloe looked down.
“Then Margaret told me the plan.”
“What plan?”
“She said once your daughter was born, there would be complications. You would be sedated. I would be moved into your recovery suite with my baby. The family would announce you had a breakdown.”
Hannah whispered, “Monster.”
Chloe’s eyes filled.
“I didn’t know they meant to hurt the baby.”
I leaned forward.
“Do not lie to me now.”
Chloe swallowed.
“I knew they meant to take her. I didn’t know they meant to make sure you couldn’t fight.”
Rebecca’s jaw tightened.
Agent Monroe asked, “Who helped you enter the hospital?”
Chloe whispered, “Dr. Porter.”
“And who gave Dr. Porter instructions?”
Chloe hesitated.
Then she said, “Margaret.”
“Arthur?”
“No. Margaret.”
I looked at her.
“Why protect Arthur?”
“I’m not.”
Chloe’s hands trembled.
“Arthur isn’t the head of the family. He never was.”
May you like
The room went silent.
Then she whispered, “Margaret is.”
