Chapter 2 - FETAL MONITORING
The baby was okay.
Everything else could wait.
Dr. Elena Brooks placed both monitors over my abdomen and watched the tracing while I counted movements.
One.
Two.
Three.
My daughter seemed furious about the entire evening.
Good.
Angry babies moved.
“Any bleeding?”
“No.”
“Fluid leakage?”
“No.”
“Contractions?”
“Some tightening. Not regular.”
The kick had struck my side, not directly over the uterus.
Still.
At thirty-five weeks and five days, trauma mattered.
They monitored me for six hours.
No placental abruption.
No progressive labor.
No concerning fetal-heart pattern.
I had bruising along my ribs and hip.
No fracture.
No internal injury.
The baby remained stable.
Only after Dr. Brooks said it a third time did I breathe normally.
Stellan sat outside.
I had asked him to wait there.
Not because I feared him.
Because I needed a room without anyone from his family inside it.
Even him.
Detective Mara Ellis arrived after my medical exam.
I described the kick.
The papers.
The forged signature.
Camille’s statement.
Stellan’s slap.
All of it.
“Did Stellan strike Celeste while she was actively attacking you?”
“He had already gotten between us.”
“So you were protected.”
“Yes.”
“He slapped her because he was angry?”
“Yes.”
I hated saying it.
Still true.
“Did he strike her again?”
“No.”
“Threaten her?”
“No.”
Good.
Separate conduct.
Separate investigation.
Then Ellis photographed the papers.
No one treated them as automatically legally valid.
That mattered.
She read the title.
“Temporary infant placement.”
“Yes.”
“You never signed this?”
“No.”
“What did you sign?”
I described the two pages Celeste showed me.
Hospital emergency contact.
Authorization for family members to bring belongings if I went into labor while Stellan traveled.
At least that was what she called them.
I had signed quickly.
Stupid?
Maybe.
Trusting?
Definitely.
Ellis asked:
“Where are those pages?”
I looked at the packet.
We found them near the front.
My genuine signature appeared on two forms.
Then four pages later:
The forged one.
The difference was visible once you looked.
My real signature was quick and slanted.
The false one was careful.
Rounded.
And somehow looked more like Celeste writing my name than me writing my own.
Stellan had noticed instantly.
Naomi Price arrived at midnight.
She was my business attorney.
Not family counsel.
Good.
She read every page.
Then said:
“These are not a completed adoption.”
I almost cried from relief.
“Could Camille take my baby with this?”
“No.”
“Absolutely?”
“A grandmother and aunt cannot assign themselves custody because they possess a document. Courts decide custody. Adoption requires valid legal consent and procedural safeguards. A pre-birth paper does not simply erase motherhood.”
My shoulders dropped.
Then Naomi added:
“But these documents matter.”
“Why?”
“They show planning.”
The packet included:
Temporary postpartum caregiver authorization.
Draft guardianship nomination.
Medical information release.
Residence plan.
Proposed parental separation agreement.
And one page labeled:
FAMILY PLACEMENT CONTINGENCY.
I stared at Naomi.
“Contingency for what?”
“Not clear.”
The paper referenced another document.
Schedule B.
Missing.
Of course.
Stellan entered only after I allowed it.
He looked gray.
“Baby?”
“Okay.”
He closed his eyes.
Then:
“I’m sorry.”
“For which thing?”
“My mother.”
“Not yours to apologize for.”
“My sister.”
“Also not.”
He swallowed.
“The slap.”
“That one is yours.”
“Yes.”
Good.
Then he looked at the papers.
“I have never seen these.”
“Any of them?”
He hesitated.
My body tightened.
“What?”
“Two weeks ago Mom gave me an emergency family-care form.”
There.
“Did you sign?”
“Yes.”
“What did it say?”
“I thought it named Camille as backup caregiver if both of us were medically unavailable during delivery.”
“Did you read it?”
His silence answered.
I laughed once.
Not humor.
“Of course.”
“Arden.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
“I read the first page.”
“Your mother tried to assign our baby to your sister and you read the first page.”
“I did not know that was what it was.”
“No. You knew enough to sign something about our child without me.”
He looked down.
That hurt more because he did not defend himself.
Naomi asked him to send the document.
He did.
Different from mine.
His signature was genuine.
His form did not transfer custody.
It nominated Camille as an emergency temporary caregiver only if both parents were unavailable.
Normal enough.
But attached metadata showed it had been produced from the same file package as my forged placement papers.
Same plan.
Different doorway.
Then Detective Ellis received a call.
She looked at us.
“Officers secured Celeste’s phone.”
I waited.
“There is a message thread with Camille.”
My stomach tightened.
“What does it say?”
Ellis kept her voice neutral.
“One message from this afternoon.”
CELeste:
Get Arden’s real signatures before I finish the rest.
Camille:
Will she read them?
Celeste:
She never reads when she’s tired.
May you like
I closed my eyes.
That was the moment forgery stopped being suspicion.
