Chapter 2 - THE SECOND BRACELET
I did not remember deciding to move.
One second I was holding my daughter beside the nursery.
The next I was backing toward the wall, my arms locked around her.
“No.”
Luca approached slowly.
“Emma.”
“No one touches her.”
“No one is going to.”
“The nurse had her bracelet.”
“A duplicate.”
“How does someone get a duplicate?”
Luca looked toward the nurses’ station.
The charge nurse had already begun making calls.
Doors at both ends of the maternity floor locked with soft mechanical clicks.
The sound terrified me.
“Hospital security is sealing the unit,” Luca said.
“Why would Derek need her bracelet?”
“We are going to find out.”
I looked down at my daughter.
She had fallen asleep again.
A tiny pink mouth.
Soft black hair.
Completely unaware that the adults around her had somehow turned her third day of life into a security emergency.
“I want the police.”
“They are coming.”
“I want a real detective. Not someone who works for you.”
Something flashed in Luca’s eyes.
Again, not anger.
Approval.
“You will have one.”
Marco lifted his phone.
“City police are eight minutes out.”
“Good.”
I looked at Luca.
“And until then?”
“Until then, nobody enters this floor without authorization.”
“What about Derek?”
“He is being detained downstairs.”
“By police?”
“By hospital security.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
“Can he leave?”
Luca paused.
“If he tries.”
I stared at him.
That was not a comforting answer.
A nurse approached.
“Ms. Lawson, we should get you back to your room.”
“I am not putting her in the nursery.”
“You do not have to.”
“I am not letting anyone take her.”
“You do not have to do that either.”
The nurse looked frightened, but kind.
“We can keep your daughter in-room with you. I will personally verify every staff member who enters.”
I followed because my body had begun reminding me I had delivered a baby seventy-two hours earlier.
Every step hurt.
Luca and Marco came with us.
At my doorway, I stopped.
“You stay outside.”
Marco’s eyebrows rose.
Luca simply nodded.
“Of course.”
That surprised me.
Men like Derek treated boundaries as invitations to negotiate.
Luca treated them as walls.
The nurse helped me into bed.
My daughter lay against my chest while I stared at the closed door.
Five minutes later, someone knocked.
“Ms. Lawson?”
A man’s voice.
“Detective Harris with Chicago Police.”
I looked at the nurse.
She checked through the window first.
Then she opened the door.
Detective Harris was in his late forties, with tired eyes and a loosened tie.
Beside him stood a younger female detective.
“Detective Nina Alvarez.”
They showed badges.
Twice, because I asked them to.
Harris did not seem offended.
“I understand.”
Luca remained in the hallway.
Harris glanced toward him.
“You can wait outside, Moretti.”
Luca’s face revealed nothing.
“This is Ms. Lawson’s room. She decides.”
Every eye turned to me.
“Outside.”
Luca left.
The detectives questioned me for nearly forty minutes.
How long had I known Derek?
Three years.
Had he threatened me?
Not directly.
Had he ever asked me to open bank accounts?
No.
Did he have access to my Social Security number?
Yes.
Tax records?
Yes.
Laptop?
Yes.
Mother’s maiden name?
Of course.
Every answer made me feel more foolish.
Not because trusting someone you love is foolish.
But because I had ignored things that now looked different.
Derek insisting on handling our taxes.
Derek taking photographs of my passport before a vacation.
Derek setting up our internet banking.
Derek becoming irritated when I wanted separate passwords.
“He said couples should not keep secrets,” I whispered.
Detective Alvarez’s expression tightened.
“People who say that sometimes mean only one person is allowed to have them.”
Harris asked about the duplicate bracelet.
“I did not know it existed.”
“Did any staff member tell you one had been printed?”
“No.”
The nurse beside me shook her head.
“There should be two matching bands for the infant and identifying bands for approved parents. A duplicate infant band requires documentation.”
“Who printed it?”
“We are checking.”
The detective wrote something down.
“Ms. Lawson, Mr. Morrison claims this is a misunderstanding.”
I laughed.
It sounded terrible.
“Of course he does.”
“He says he requested the bracelet because he intended to take a photograph for a family keepsake.”
I stared at him.
“He refused to acknowledge that she was his daughter.”
“I know.”
“He said he wanted proof she belonged to him and then secretly got a bracelet with her name on it?”
“I am telling you his explanation.”
“Do you believe it?”
Harris did not answer.
Detective Alvarez did.
“No.”
Harris glanced at her.
She shrugged.
“She asked.”
For the first time all day, I almost smiled.
Then Harris continued.
“The nurse in the garage says Mr. Morrison gave her five hundred dollars to obtain the duplicate.”
My smile vanished.
“Why?”
“She claims she thought it was harmless.”
“Is she under arrest?”
“She is being questioned.”
A knock interrupted us.
Marco appeared through the window.
He did not enter.
He held up a phone toward Luca.
Luca read something.
His head snapped toward my room.
“What?” I demanded.
Harris stood.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
“Ms. Lawson—”
“Whatever concerns my daughter concerns me.”
Alvarez stepped toward the door.
“We will find out.”
She left.
Harris remained.
I watched through the window.
Marco spoke.
Luca said something.
Alvarez’s face changed.
Then she came back.
“What happened?”
She closed the door.
“The security team reviewed parking footage from the last twenty-four hours.”
My pulse began racing again.
“And?”
“Mr. Morrison’s vehicle entered the employee garage yesterday at 3:12 a.m.”
I frowned.
“He told me he was at home.”
“Do you know why he came here?”
“No.”
“He never entered through the public lobby.”
A cold sensation crawled down my spine.
“How did he get upstairs?”
“He did not.”
I looked at her.
“Then why was he here?”
“He met the same nurse.”
My daughter shifted.
I held her tighter.
“What did he give her?”
Alvarez hesitated.
“An envelope.”
“What was inside?”
“We do not know yet.”
I looked through the window.
Luca was still standing there.
And I suddenly knew he knew more.
“Bring him in.”
Harris frowned.
“Ms. Lawson—”
“You can stay.”
The door opened.
Luca entered.
He remained several feet from the bed.
“What is in the envelope?”
He looked at Alvarez.
She looked annoyed.
“If you have evidence relevant to an active police investigation—”
“I turned it over twenty minutes ago.”
“What evidence?”
Luca’s gaze returned to me.
“A photograph.”
“Of what?”
“Your daughter’s bassinet card.”
My heart stumbled.
“That makes no sense.”
“The photograph was taken yesterday.”
I looked at my baby.
Yesterday.
Before Derek had walked into the hospital pretending he had barely thought about us.
“What else?”
“A copy of the nursery schedule.”
The room became very quiet.
Harris stopped writing.
“Where did you get that?”
“One of my security people recovered deleted messages from a device belonging to an employee already under investigation.”
Harris’s mouth hardened.
“You have investigators inside my hospital?”
“My hospital.”
There it was.
The room went silent again.
I stared at Luca.
“What?”
He did not look pleased to reveal it.
“The Moretti family foundation owns controlling interest in St. Catherine’s Medical Center.”
I thought about the way nurses avoided his eyes.
The guards.
The locked doors.
The whispered surname.
“You own the hospital?”
“The foundation does.”
“That is why everyone is afraid of you?”
Marco made a sound that suspiciously resembled a cough.
Luca looked at him.
Marco became stone again.
“Not entirely.”
Under different circumstances, I might have asked.
I did not.
“Why would Derek want the nursery schedule?”
Luca’s expression darkened.
“That is the question that matters.”
Harris checked his phone.
Then frowned.
“Excuse me.”
He stepped into the hall.
Detective Alvarez stayed.
I watched Harris answer.
His body stiffened.
He looked toward me through the glass.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
When he came back, he closed the door carefully.
“The nurse from the parking garage has changed her story.”
“What does that mean?”
“She says Derek did not ask for a souvenir.”
“What did he ask for?”
Harris glanced toward my daughter.
Then back at me.
“He wanted to know when your baby would be transported downstairs.”
My throat tightened.
“Transported where?”
“For routine imaging.”
“She does not need imaging.”
The nurse beside me spoke.
“No. She does not.”
Harris nodded.
“That is what made the employee suspicious.”
I could barely breathe.
“Then why ask?”
“According to her, Derek said a physician had ordered it.”
“He lied.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Nobody answered.
I looked at Luca.
“You said Plan B.”
His jaw tightened.
I remembered the message.
If the girl is mine, Plan B is still possible.
My mouth went dry.
“The paternity test.”
Luca’s gaze sharpened.
“What about it?”
“He wants the result before he signs anything. He said if she is his…”
My voice disappeared.
Alvarez finished quietly.
“Then Plan B.”
I stared down at my daughter.
For three years, Derek had wanted children.
At least, that was what he told me.
He had picked nursery colors.
He bought her first stuffed elephant.
He had once placed his ear against my belly and whispered, Daddy’s here.
What could happen between then and now that made him want his own child moved through a hospital under a false order?
My phone buzzed on the bedside table.
Everyone looked at it.
Unknown number.
A text appeared.
Emma, do not trust Moretti.
Another arrived immediately.
Ask him why his brother died.
My eyes lifted.
Luca had gone completely still.
“Who sent that?” Harris asked.
I did not answer.
Another message.
A photograph loaded.
An old newspaper clipping.
A black car crushed beneath twisted metal.
A younger man’s photograph in the corner.
Same dark hair.
Same sharp eyes as Luca.
The headline read:
MORETTI HEIR MATTEO MORETTI KILLED IN LAKESHORE CRASH
Below it, one line had been circled.
Passenger Emma Lawson, 22, survived with minor injuries.
I stopped breathing.
“No.”
I enlarged the photograph.
The date was six years earlier.
I remembered the crash.
Of course I remembered.
Rain.
Glass.
A man bleeding beside me.
A stranger pulling me through a shattered door.
But I had never known his last name.
He had introduced himself only as Matt.
My eyes slowly rose to Luca.
“You knew who I was.”
He said nothing.
“You knew the moment you saw my name.”
Still nothing.
“You knew me before today.”
“Yes.”
The truth hurt more than the lie would have.
Harris looked between us.
“What is going on?”
I barely heard him.
I could see only Luca.
“You are Matteo’s brother.”
“Yes.”
“And you have been investigating Derek.”
“Yes.”
“Because of stolen money?”
Luca’s eyes held mine.
“Not only because of the money.”
Something inside me turned to ice.
“Then why?”
He stepped closer.
“My brother did not die in an accident, Emma.”
My hand froze against my daughter’s blanket.
Luca’s next words changed the entire shape of my past.
“Matteo was murdered.”
May you like
And before I could speak, he added:
“Three days before he died, he gave me Derek Morrison’s name.”
