Chapter 2 - The Woman From Seventeen Years Ago
Hospital security didn't appreciate being ordered around by Sebastian Moretti.
Sebastian didn't appear to care.
Neither did I.
By two in the morning, four people were crowded into a small conference room behind the NICU: me, Nadia, the hospital's security director, and Sebastian.
On the wall was a frozen surveillance image.
A seventeen-year-old girl in an oversized gray sweatshirt stood near the service elevators.
Leah Miller.
Her face was turned partially toward the camera.
She looked exhausted.
Frightened.
One hand pressed against her abdomen as if she was still in pain from giving birth.
Beside her stood a woman in her late sixties.
Gray hair.
Long wool coat.
One hand gripping Leah's elbow.
Margaret Miller.
Sebastian stared at the image.
“You're certain?”
The security director, Tom Alvarez, folded his arms.
“We ran the image through old employee files. Ninety-six-percent visual match.”
“She worked here?”
“According to HR archives, Margaret Miller was a neonatal nurse from 1998 until 2011.”
Sebastian turned toward him.
“When did she leave?”
Tom clicked through the records.
“January 2011.”
Sebastian's jaw tightened.
“Seven months after Isabella died.”
Nobody spoke.
Tom glanced at me.
“This is where I need to make something clear. We're not law enforcement. We can review our own property and records, but we're not conducting a criminal investigation.”
Sebastian's gaze stayed on the screen.
“Neither am I.”
Tom gave him a look that said he didn't believe that for a second.
“Good.”
Sebastian finally looked at him.
“If I were conducting one, we'd be having a very different conversation.”
“Mr. Moretti.”
“Sebastian.”
Tom exhaled.
“Whatever your name is, threats aren't going to help.”
“That wasn't a threat.”
I stepped between the two men before the temperature in the room dropped any further.
“Can we focus on Leah?”
Tom nodded reluctantly.
He played the footage.
Leah and Margaret waited near the service elevator for forty-two seconds.
Leah kept glancing over her shoulder.
At one point she pulled her arm away.
Margaret spoke to her.
There was no audio.
Then Leah looked back toward the hallway leading to the NICU.
She didn't appear eager to leave.
She looked like someone being convinced.
Or frightened.
The elevator opened.
They disappeared inside.
“Where did they go?” I asked.
“Parking garage.”
Tom switched cameras.
We watched them walk toward an old blue sedan.
Leah stopped beside the passenger door.
Margaret opened it.
Leah didn't get in.
Instead, she turned.
Even through the grainy footage, I could see tears on her face.
Margaret said something.
Then she reached into her purse.
Sebastian leaned closer to the monitor.
“Pause.”
Tom froze the image.
Margaret was holding something small in her palm.
A photograph.
Leah looked at it.
Then she got into the car.
Sebastian's voice changed.
“Zoom in.”
“It'll distort.”
“Do it.”
Tom enlarged the photograph.
Pixels blurred.
Shapes became blocks.
But there were still enough details to recognize two figures.
A young man.
A baby.
Sebastian stopped breathing.
I looked from the image to him.
“Is that you?”
He didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
The young man in the photograph had darker hair and a thinner face, but the eyes were unmistakable.
Sebastian.
Holding an infant.
Isabella.
“Where would Margaret get that picture?” Nadia asked.
Sebastian's gaze remained fixed on the screen.
“Elena took it.”
“Your wife?”
“Yes.”
“Did she give copies to anyone?”
“No.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because it was taken on a disposable camera. Elena had two copies printed. One was buried in Isabella's empty casket.”
My skin prickled.
“And the other?”
Sebastian slowly lifted his eyes.
“Was stolen from my home three days after the funeral.”
Tom stopped the video.
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Then Nadia opened the thin social-services folder.
“I found something else.”
Sebastian turned.
“About Leah?”
“About Margaret.”
She placed several pages on the table.
“Margaret Miller didn't have children.”
“Then Leah isn't her biological daughter,” I said.
“Not according to anything I can find.”
“Granddaughter?”
“No.”
“Foster placement?”
Nadia tapped the page.
“That part gets stranger. A child named Leah Miller appeared in school enrollment records when she was six.”
“Appeared?” I repeated.
“There are no vaccination records before that. No hospital birth record under that name. No preschool registration. No previous address.”
Sebastian's face became unreadable.
“What was the birth date listed?”
Nadia looked at him.
“June eighteenth.”
The room went silent.
I already knew the answer.
“Isabella's birthday,” I whispered.
Sebastian didn't move.
Nadia nodded.
“Exactly seventeen years ago.”
My pulse jumped.
“Sebastian…”
“No.”
The word came immediately.
Not angry.
Defensive.
As if refusing hope could protect him from it.
Nadia continued carefully.
“Leah's official school documents claim she was born in another state, but the birth certificate number doesn't correspond to that state's numbering system.”
Tom frowned.
“You're saying it's fake?”
“I'm saying someone created a paper identity for her.”
Sebastian walked toward the window.
Outside, Pine Valley was dark except for emergency vehicles near the entrance.
His reflection looked older than it had twelve hours earlier.
“What did Leah look like?” he asked.
I glanced at the surveillance image.
“You can see her.”
“No.”
He turned toward me.
“I mean when she was here.”
I remembered.
I had only seen her once.
A frightened girl with dark hair pulled into a messy knot.
Thin wrists.
Large brown eyes.
She had barely spoken.
“She looked young.”
“What else?”
“Sebastian…”
“Please.”
That word again.
I closed my eyes and reconstructed the delivery room.
“She had dark hair. Brown eyes. A small scar near her right eyebrow.”
Sebastian's face changed.
His hand rose unconsciously to his own eyebrow.
A faint pale line sat beneath the hair.
I hadn't noticed it before.
“Sebastian?”
He lowered his hand.
“I fell through a glass door when I was eight.”
“That doesn't mean anything.”
“I know.”
But his voice suggested it meant everything.
Nadia turned another page.
“Leah's blood type is A negative.”
Sebastian gave a humorless laugh.
“Elena was A negative.”
“What are you?”
“O positive.”
I knew enough genetics to understand that combination was possible.
But still not proof.
“Can DNA be tested?” Tom asked.
Nadia immediately shook her head.
“Not without appropriate consent or legal authorization.”
Sebastian looked at her.
“I don't want anything done illegally.”
Tom almost smiled.
“That might be the first time those words have been spoken in this room tonight.”
Sebastian ignored him.
“What can be done?”
“If Leah returns, we can ask her.”
“And if she doesn't?”
“Then nothing.”
Sebastian walked back to the table.
“There is always something.”
I didn't like his tone.
“Sebastian.”
He looked at me.
“If you send your people after a terrified seventeen-year-old girl, you may make her disappear permanently.”
His expression hardened.
“She may be my daughter.”
“Then act like her father.”
Silence.
Tom looked at me as though I had lost my mind.
Maybe I had.
But Sebastian listened.
“If she believes you're dangerous,” I continued, “a fleet of black SUVs outside her house won't convince her otherwise.”
“I don't know where she lives.”
“Good.”
His eyebrow lifted.
“For once in your life, maybe good.”
A strange thing happened.
The corner of Sebastian's mouth almost moved.
Then Nadia's phone buzzed.
She checked the screen.
“I've got Margaret Miller's last known address.”
Sebastian immediately stood.
“No.”
Every head turned toward me.
“You are not going there.”
“Rachel.”
“If Leah is with her, you'll scare her.”
“I can go alone.”
“You don't do alone.”
“I came here alone.”
“Your men are outside.”
“They stayed outside because hospital policy requires—”
“Sebastian.”
He stopped.
I pointed toward the screen.
“Seventeen years ago someone took something from you. Maybe Margaret. Maybe someone else. If Leah is Isabella, she has spent her entire life being told a version of you that we don't understand yet.”
His face darkened.
“What version?”
“I don't know. But you cannot walk into that girl's life as Sebastian Moretti from the evening news.”
His gaze shifted to the photograph.
“Then who do I walk in as?”
I softened my voice.
“Her father.”
Something about the word nearly broke him.
He looked away.
Tom cleared his throat.
“I can request a welfare check.”
Sebastian turned.
“Police?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“If Margaret has hidden that girl for seventeen years, uniforms at the door could send them running.”
“He's right,” Nadia said reluctantly.
Tom sighed.
“So what do you suggest?”
Nobody answered.
Then a monitor alarm sounded faintly through the conference-room wall.
Even with multiple doors between us and the NICU, I recognized bed nine.
I was already moving.
I ran back into the unit.
Baby Boy Miller was crying.
Not dangerously.
Just loudly.
His fists were curled against his chest.
A nurse was attempting to soothe him through the incubator opening.
Sebastian arrived behind me.
The baby's crying intensified.
I watched Sebastian approach.
He stopped beside the incubator.
“Easy, piccolo.”
The crying changed.
Not stopped.
Changed.
Sebastian slipped one hand through the port and offered his finger.
The baby's fist opened.
Tiny fingers wrapped around him.
Silence.
Nurse Jenkins stared.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
Sebastian looked down at the infant.
“He remembers voices.”
“He shouldn't know yours this well after one day.”
“Maybe he's smart.”
“Or stubborn.”
“That too.”
For thirty seconds the mystery disappeared.
There was only a premature baby gripping the finger of a man who was afraid to hope.
Then I noticed something taped beneath the incubator mattress.
A white corner.
“What's that?”
Jenkins frowned.
“What?”
I reached under the edge.
An envelope.
No stamp.
No hospital markings.
My name was written across the front.
RACHEL.
Every instinct in my body went cold.
“When did this get here?”
Jenkins shook her head.
“I have no idea.”
Sebastian took a step closer.
“Open it.”
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
The handwriting was shaky.
Young.
I read the first sentence.
Then stopped.
“What does it say?” Sebastian demanded.
I handed it to him.
He read.
His face turned white.
The note said:
Nurse Rachel,
Please don't let him take my baby.
I know Sebastian Moretti is there. Margaret told me he would come eventually.
She told me he destroyed my mother.
She told me if he ever discovered who I was, he would destroy me too.
But I don't know if I believe her anymore.
Ask him what happened to Elena Moretti.
If he lies, keep my son away from him.
If he tells you the truth, tell him I'm sorry.
There was no signature.
There didn't need to be.
I slowly looked at Sebastian.
His hand holding the paper had begun to shake.
“Who was Elena?” I asked.
“My wife.”
“I know that.”
I swallowed.
“What happened to her?”
Sebastian closed his eyes.
For the first time since meeting him, he looked afraid of the truth.
Then he opened them.
“Elena died eleven months after Isabella.”
My stomach tightened.
“How?”
“A car explosion.”
Nadia covered her mouth.
Tom stared.
Sebastian looked down at the baby.
“The police believed the bomb was meant for me.”
I didn't speak.
“But Elena wasn't supposed to be in the car.”
His voice cracked on the last word.
“And for seventeen years, I believed I buried my wife because of the life I chose.”
He looked at Leah's letter again.
“But if my daughter is alive…”
May you like
He turned toward the dark hospital windows.
“…then somebody has spent seventeen years teaching her that I killed her mother.”
