Chapter 10 - Infant BThe flash drive contained three folders.
Dante’s tech team made a copy under Santos’s supervision while Dr. Calloway checked Emma in an exam room surrounded by police, nurses, and a father who refused to blink.
I sat outside with a hospital blanket around my shoulders.
My body had begun shaking now that danger had passed.
That was always how it worked.
During the worst moments, I became useful.
Afterward, I became human again.
Lucia was upstairs under Dr. Mehta’s care, sleeping after tests that showed her condition was serious but not hopeless. Not the death sentence Harlan had made us swallow. Not easy, not cheap, not painless—but possible.
Possible felt like sunlight after years underground.
Santos stepped out of the conference room holding printed pages.
Adrian followed.
His face told me the world had changed again.
“What is it?” I asked.
He did not answer.
He handed me a photograph.
A newborn.
Tiny.
Wrapped in hospital blankets.
A blue band around one ankle.
Not Emma.
The baby’s hair was lighter. Her face narrower. But there was something familiar in the shape of the mouth.
Under the photograph was a label.
INFANT B — FEMALE — LIVE BIRTH
Live birth.
I looked up slowly.
“Sofia had two living daughters.”
Adrian’s voice was barely audible.
“Yes.”
My stomach twisted.
“What happened to the other baby?”
Santos answered.
“According to the files, Infant B was transferred to neonatal intensive care at a partner hospital due to respiratory distress.”
“And then?”
“The official record says she died during transfer.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“But the real file says she arrived alive.”
I looked back at the photograph.
A baby erased by paperwork.
A sister stolen before anyone could love her properly.
“Who signed the transfer?”
“Harlan,” Santos said.
“And Celeste authorized it as emergency family proxy while Sofia was under anesthesia.”
Adrian’s face became stone.
“My father had given her medical authority during family emergencies years earlier. I never changed the document.”
Because no one expects old paperwork to become a weapon against newborns.
I looked at him.
“Did Sofia know?”
Pain crossed his face.
“She woke up asking for both babies. Harlan told us one died before delivery. Sofia was sedated, hemorrhaging, barely conscious. I believed him.”
He looked down at his hands.
“I believed him.”
There was no accusation I could make that sounded worse than his own memory.
Santos continued.
“The file contains payment records routed through Celeste’s charitable foundation. A private adoption broker. Offshore accounts. False death certification. This is bigger than Emma’s attempted murder.”
My throat tightened.
“Where is Infant B now?”
Silence.
That was answer enough.
They did not know.
Adrian turned toward the windows overlooking Chicago.
His reflection looked older.
“For eight months,” he said, “my daughter has been somewhere without us.”
My chest hurt.
I thought of Lucia as a child in hospital beds, gripping my hand after procedures. I thought of Emma in a dumpster. I thought of a second baby girl taken from a mother who later died believing she had lost her.
“What was her name?” I asked.
Adrian looked back.
“What?”
“Did Sofia name her?”
He swallowed.
“We chose names before delivery. Emma Sofia for the first. Ava Grace for the second.”
Ava Grace Valente.
A baby turned into a file.
A daughter turned into a transaction.
A sister turned into leverage.
Santos folded the papers.
“We have Karen’s statement, Harlan in custody, Rafe alive, Celeste arrested, and the flash drive. I can get warrants by morning.”
“Morning is too late,” Adrian said.
Santos’s eyes narrowed.
“Do not start.”
“Eight months,” he said. “She’s had eight months.”
“I know.”
“No, Detective. You don’t.”
Santos stepped closer.
“I know exactly what happens when powerful men rush into cases because grief tells them speed is the same as justice. Evidence gets destroyed. Witnesses get scared. Children disappear again.”
Adrian’s control frayed.
“That is my daughter.”
“And I am trying to find her.”
The air sharpened.
I stood.
Both of them looked at me.
“Karen knows something.”
Santos shook her head.
“She says she doesn’t know where the baby went.”
“She may not know the address. But she knows Celeste. She knows how they contacted her, where they threatened her son, what names they used. Fear makes people remember strangely. Ask her about her child.”
Santos studied me.
Then nodded.
“Come with me.”
Adrian immediately said, “No.”
I looked at him.
He stopped.
Correcting himself before I had to.
“Please,” he said through his teeth, “do not put yourself near Karen again.”
“She blamed me for attempted murder. I think I deserve to hear her explain.”
“She is not safe.”
“She is handcuffed.”
“People in handcuffs can still lie.”
“So can doctors. So can stepmothers. So can grieving fathers.”
He flinched.
I regretted the last one for half a second.
Only half.
Santos led me to a small interview room where Karen sat wrapped in a police blanket.
Without makeup, without the perfect nanny uniform, she looked younger.
Or maybe guilt made people smaller.
She lifted her swollen eyes when I entered.
“No,” she whispered. “I can’t.”
I sat across from her.
Santos remained by the wall.
Adrian watched through the glass.
I could feel him.
“Your son,” I said.
Karen began crying instantly.
“His name is Milo.”
“How old?”
“Six.”
“Where is he?”
“With my aunt. I thought he was safe. Then Celeste sent me a photograph of him leaving school.”
Her voice broke.
“She said if I didn’t help, people would tell the court I was unstable, that I abandoned him, that I stole medication from employers. She had documents. Real-looking documents.”
Santos wrote everything down.
“What did she ask you to do?”
“At first? Small things. Report Emma’s feeding schedule. Tell her when Adrian was home. Send pictures of nursery keys.”
“And then?”
“She introduced me to Harlan.”
I kept my face still.
“He said Adrian was becoming dangerous after Sofia died. That Emma wasn’t safe with him. That Celeste was trying to protect the baby.”
“You believed that?”
Karen wiped her face.
“I wanted to. It made me less guilty.”
That was the first honest thing she had said.
“What about Ava?”
Karen froze.
There.
A name could unlock what a file could not.
“You know about her,” I said.
Karen looked at Santos.
“I didn’t know at first.”
“But you know now.”
Karen’s hands shook.
“Celeste got drunk once. Not sloppy drunk. Angry drunk. She said Adrian was sentimental over the wrong daughter.”
My breath caught.
“Wrong daughter?”
“She said Sofia’s second baby was the one who mattered.”
Adrian moved behind the glass.
I saw his shadow shift.
“Why?” Santos asked.
Karen shook her head.
“I don’t know. Something about blood tests. Inheritance. I swear I don’t know.”
“Where is Ava?”
Tears slid down Karen’s face.
“I never saw her.”
“But?”
Karen looked at me.
“There was a woman who came to the estate twice. Not through the front. Through the east gate. Celeste called her Mrs. Vale.”
My heart stumbled.
Vale.
“First name?”
“Marianne, maybe. Or Marion.”
Santos wrote.
“Description.”
“Fifties. Dark hair. Expensive coat. British accent. She wore a sapphire brooch shaped like a bird.”
Adrian opened the door before Santos could stop him.
“Say that again.”
Karen shrank back.
“The brooch?”
Adrian’s voice was deadly quiet.
“What kind of bird?”
“A swan.”
Dante appeared behind him.
“Boss?”
Adrian looked at him.
“Find Marion Vale.”
Santos asked, “Who is she?”
Adrian’s face was ashen.
“My wife’s godmother.”
The room went quiet.
He looked through the glass toward the hospital wing where Emma slept.
May you like
Then back at us.
“Sofia trusted her with everything.”
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