Chapter 2 - BABY C
Hospital security removed Bramley from the maternity floor.
That should have made me feel safer.
It didn’t.
Not immediately.
My mind kept replaying the distance between my bed and the door.
Fourteen feet.
Maybe fifteen.
That was all Bramley had crossed while holding Leo.
But after major surgery, fourteen feet might as well have been a mile.
Nurse Camille Ross checked all three identification bands.
Leo.
Nora.
James.
Mine.
Calder’s.
Everything matched.
Then she paused over Leo’s electronic tag.
“What?”
Camille turned it over.
“The clasp was opened.”
My stomach dropped.
“Opened?”
“It’s supposed to alarm if someone tampers with it.”
“Did it?”
“I’m checking.”
Hospital security reviewed the system.
The alarm had triggered.
For seven seconds.
Then been manually cleared from a nursing-station terminal.
Nobody in the room spoke.
Calder looked at Camille.
“Who cleared it?”
“We don’t know yet.”
That answer launched an internal hospital investigation.
Good.
Specific.
No immediate conspiracy theory.
Maybe a nurse silenced the wrong alarm.
Maybe Bramley had been helped.
Maybe the system malfunctioned.
Facts first.
Then a patient-relations administrator arrived.
She had something else.
An entry had been made in Leo’s chart two hours before Bramley entered.
AUTHORIZED FAMILY CAREGIVER:
CECILY SUTTON.
I stared.
“Who entered that?”
“We are reviewing audit logs.”
“Did I authorize it?”
“No signed maternal authorization is attached.”
“Did Calder?”
“No.”
My husband went still.
Cecily.
His sister.
Thirty-five.
Eight years of infertility treatment.
Three failed IVF cycles.
One miscarriage.
A woman I had cried with.
A woman who had held my hand at my baby shower and told me she was happy for me even though happiness hurt.
I could not reconcile that woman with Bramley taking Leo.
“Call her,” I said.
Calder hesitated.
“Roselle—”
“Call your sister.”
He did.
Speakerphone.
Cecily answered on the fourth ring.
“Calder?”
“Are you at the hospital?”
“No. Dad told me not to come until tomorrow.”
I closed my eyes.
Good.
Maybe.
Calder said:
“Did Dad tell you Roselle was giving you one of the babies?”
Silence.
Then:
“What?”
“He took Leo from her room.”
“What do you mean took?”
“He carried him toward the door and said you should get him.”
Cecily made a sound I had never heard from her.
“No.”
“Cecily.”
“No. No, no, no.”
She started crying.
“I never asked for that.”
I looked at Calder.
His face stayed hard.
“Did Dad discuss adoption?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
“When?”
“Months ago.”
I stared at the phone.
Calder asked:
“What did he say?”
“That Roselle might be overwhelmed with triplets. That maybe there was a way to… keep one close.”
“Keep one close?”
“He said if you both agreed.”
“I never agreed.”
“I know.”
“Did you?”
“No!”
Cecily’s voice cracked.
“I told him it was disgusting.”
Relief came.
Then vanished when she added:
“He said it wasn’t only about me.”
Calder looked at me.
“What else?”
“I don’t know.”
“He said there were family consequences if your branch had three children and mine had none.”
Branch.
There was that word.
“What branch?” I asked.
Cecily went quiet.
“Roselle?”
“Yes.”
“I thought Calder told you.”
My husband closed his eyes.
“Told me what?”
Cecily whispered:
“The family company has two descendant branches.”
Calder ended the call twenty seconds later.
Not because he was angry with her.
Because my blood pressure alarm started beeping.
The nurse made him stop talking.
I needed medication.
Rest.
Breathing.
Normal postpartum things.
Except nothing felt normal.
Later, while Calder slept in the visitor chair, I watched all three bassinets.
Leo.
Nora.
James.
Three babies.
Three branches?
No.
That made no sense.
Then Calder’s phone lit on the table.
A message appeared.
FROM: MERRITT & COLE — SPECIAL COUNSEL
Board meeting moved to 8:00 A.M.
Second line:
Do not let Bramley access corporate systems.
I looked at my husband sleeping ten feet away.
May you like
Bramley had threatened to fire him.
Apparently someone had already decided Bramley should not even be allowed to log in.
