PART 3
The gunshot swallowed every sound in the room.
For one second, I couldn’t see anything.
Then a body crashed against my chest.
“Rachel!”
I caught her before she hit the floor.
My hands were still cuffed in front of me, and I could barely hold her weight. I lowered her beside the interrogation table as emergency lights flickered red along the ceiling.
“Rachel, talk to me.”
She didn’t answer.
My fingers moved frantically over her shoulders, her chest, her stomach, searching for blood.
There was none.
Then I realized the person lying beside me wasn’t Rachel.
It was Detective Mendes.
She groaned and rolled onto her back, one hand clamped over her upper arm. Blood poured between her fingers.
Her gun lay several feet away.
“Daniel,” Rachel whispered from the darkness.
I turned toward her voice.
She was crouched behind the metal chair, holding a small pistol with both hands. Her entire body shook.
“You shot her?”
“I aimed for her arm.”
Detective Mendes tried to sit up.
Rachel pointed the gun at her again.
“Don’t move.”
“You have no idea what you’ve done,” Mendes hissed.
“No,” Rachel said. “For the first time in five years, I know exactly what I’m doing.”
Footsteps thundered outside the locked door.
Someone shouted for Mendes.
Another voice ordered everyone to get down.
Rachel ran toward me and shoved a small key into the handcuffs.
“Where did you get this?”
“From her pocket when she grabbed me.”
My right cuff opened.
Before I could free the other wrist, the interrogation-room door shook under a heavy blow.
“Police! Drop the weapon!”
“They’re not all working with her,” I said.
“We don’t know which ones are.”
The door shook again.
Rachel pressed the black flash drive into my hand.
“You need to get this to someone outside the department.”
“What’s on it?”
“Everything Jason and Carla think I destroyed.”
Another blow struck the door.
The lock began to crack.
“Rachel, what happened when Lily was born?”
Her face collapsed.
Even in the red emergency light, I could see the fear in her eyes.
“This isn’t the time.”
“You told me our daughter’s life was connected to all of this.”
“She is our daughter.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Rachel looked toward the door.
Then back at me.
“The hospital told us Lily was born without a heartbeat.”
I remembered.
I remembered every second.
Rachel screaming.
Doctors rushing into the delivery room.
A nurse pushing me into the hallway.
Then forty-three minutes of silence before a doctor came out and told me they had revived our baby.
It had been the happiest miracle of my life.
“What does that have to do with Harrison?”
Rachel swallowed.
“The doctor who told you Lily had been revived lied.”
The room went cold.
“What are you saying?”
“Our baby died, Daniel.”
I stared at her.
The words refused to make sense.
“I held her.”
“You held a baby.”
My legs nearly gave out.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
Rachel began crying.
“The hospital had another newborn girl that night. Her mother had disappeared after giving birth. No identification. No family. The baby was going to be placed into emergency custody.”
I shook my head.
“You’re lying.”
“Jason Harrison was the hospital’s legal administrator before he became a principal.”
I remembered hearing that he had worked in healthcare years earlier, but I had never cared enough to ask where.
“He switched the records,” Rachel continued. “He gave us that child and recorded our baby as the abandoned infant who died.”
The air left my lungs.
I looked toward the dark window in the interrogation-room door.
Somewhere across town, Lily was probably asking where I was.
Lily, who loved strawberry pancakes.
Lily, who slept with three stuffed animals but claimed she was too old for night-lights.
Lily, who called me Daddy when she was afraid and Dad when she wanted to sound grown-up.
None of that changed.
But everything had changed.
“You knew?” I asked.
“Not at first.”
“When did you find out?”
“Two years ago.”
The door shook again.
A voice outside shouted, “Carla, respond!”
Detective Mendes laughed through clenched teeth.
“You should tell him all of it, Rachel.”
Rachel raised the gun.
“I said stay quiet.”
Mendes looked at me.
“Ask your wife why Harrison kept the original birth certificate.”
I turned to Rachel.
She closed her eyes.
“He used it to control me.”
“Control you how?”
“When I started working for the school district, I found irregular payments. Construction contracts going to companies that didn’t exist. Technology grants disappearing. Jason was taking millions.”
“And you helped him?”
“At first, I gathered evidence.”
“But he found out.”
Rachel nodded.
“He showed me the hospital records. He said if I reported him, he would expose the truth about Lily.”
“That wouldn’t be Lily’s fault.”
“No, but he said he would make it look like I had kidnapped her.”
My anger returned.
“You signed the payments.”
“I thought I was protecting her.”
“You were protecting yourself.”
The words hurt her.
They were supposed to.
“For two years,” I said, “you helped a criminal steal from children because you were afraid people would discover that our daughter wasn’t biologically ours.”
“It wasn’t just that.”
“What else?”
Rachel looked at Mendes.
The detective smiled.
“The abandoned mother came back,” Mendes said.
Rachel’s face turned white.
“What?”
I stepped closer.
“Lily’s biological mother came back?”
“Three months ago,” Rachel whispered. “She contacted Jason.”
“What did she want?”
“She wanted her daughter.”
A violent crash echoed through the room.
The top hinge tore away from the door.
We had seconds.
Rachel grabbed my arm.
“There’s a service corridor behind the observation window.”
“That’s glass.”
“It’s one-way safety glass. The emergency release is under the table.”
She dropped to her knees and reached beneath the interrogation table. Her fingers found a metal lever.
She pulled.
A section of the mirrored wall clicked open.
Behind it was a narrow hallway filled with wires, recording equipment, and security monitors.
Rachel pushed me through first.
“What about Mendes?”
“Leave her.”
The main door burst open as Rachel climbed into the corridor behind me.
Two officers stormed into the interrogation room.
“Gun!” one shouted.
Rachel slammed the hidden panel closed.
A bullet struck the glass behind us.
We ran.
The corridor was so narrow that my shoulders scraped the walls. My left wrist still carried one half of the handcuffs, the loose chain striking my arm with every step.
“Where does this lead?” I asked.
“To the evidence garage.”
“How do you know?”
“Carla brought me through here.”
“At gunpoint?”
Rachel didn’t answer.
That told me enough.
We reached a steel door.
Rachel pressed her ear against it, listened, then opened it carefully.
A concrete garage stretched before us. Police vehicles sat beneath fluorescent lights. Rainwater ran in silver streams down the entrance ramp.
An unmarked black SUV idled near the exit.
“Is that theirs?” I asked.
“No.”
The driver’s door opened.
Dr. Patel stepped out.
Lily’s pediatrician.
My first thought was that she had come to help.
Then she raised a gun.
“Put the drive on the ground.”
Rachel stepped in front of me.
“You’re with Harrison too?”
Dr. Patel’s calm hospital expression had vanished.
“Jason doesn’t own me.”
“Then who does?”
“The woman whose child you stole.”
My stomach twisted.
“Where is Lily?”
“She’s safe.”
“Where?”
“With her mother.”
I moved toward her.
Dr. Patel pointed the gun directly at my chest.
“One more step and she loses both parents tonight.”
Rachel gripped my sleeve.
“Daniel, don’t.”
Dr. Patel held out her free hand.
“The drive.”
“What does Lily’s biological mother have to do with the stolen money?” I asked.
“Everything.”
Rachel frowned.
Dr. Patel looked at her.
“You never understood why Jason chose that particular baby, did you?”
Rachel’s breathing quickened.
“What are you talking about?”
“Lily’s mother wasn’t an unidentified runaway. Her name was Evelyn Cross.”
The name meant nothing to me.
But it meant something to Rachel.
She staggered backward.
“No.”
“Who is Evelyn Cross?” I demanded.
Rachel stared at Dr. Patel.
“She was the district treasurer before me.”
Dr. Patel nodded.
“And the first person who discovered Jason Harrison’s fraud.”
The pieces began moving into place.
Harrison hadn’t given us Lily out of compassion.
He had taken the daughter of a woman who could expose him.
“You’re saying Harrison stole Evelyn’s baby to silence her?”
“He told Evelyn her daughter died,” Dr. Patel said. “Then he told Rachel that her own baby survived.”
Two grieving mothers.
Two lies.
One child used as leverage against both of them.
“Why didn’t Evelyn go to the police?”
“She did. Carla Mendes destroyed the complaint.”
A siren wailed somewhere inside the station.
Dr. Patel glanced toward the ramp.
“We’re out of time. Give me the drive.”
“How do I know you’ll take me to Lily?”
“You don’t.”
“Then you’re not getting it.”
She raised the gun higher.
Rachel stepped forward.
“Evelyn hired you?”
Dr. Patel shook her head.
“Evelyn is my sister.”
Silence filled the garage.
“She has spent seven years believing her child died,” Dr. Patel continued. “Three months ago, she found a copy of the original hospital log. She learned Lily was alive.”
“Why didn’t she contact us?” I asked.
“She wanted to. I convinced her to wait until we had proof.”
“And now she has taken my daughter.”
“Her daughter.”
“She is my daughter!”
My voice echoed through the garage.
Dr. Patel’s face softened for half a second.
“I know you love her.”
“You know nothing about us.”
“I know Lily called for you when Evelyn picked her up.”
The words cut deeper than any accusation.
“She was crying?”
“Yes.”
“Then take me to her.”
“Give me the drive.”
Rachel slowly reached toward my hand.
“Daniel, we have to.”
I looked at her.
“That drive is the only thing keeping Harrison from burying all of us.”
“And if we don’t hand it over, we may never see Lily again.”
A door slammed behind us.
Detective Mendes stumbled into the garage, blood soaking her sleeve. She held a second gun in her uninjured hand.
“Patel!” she shouted.
Dr. Patel spun.
The two women fired at the same time.
The noise was deafening.
Dr. Patel dropped behind the SUV.
Mendes fell against a police cruiser but remained standing.
Rachel pulled me behind a concrete pillar.
“Give me the drive,” she said.
“What?”
“I’ll draw Carla away. You get to Lily.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“You have to.”
She took the flash drive from my hand before I could stop her.
Then she ran into the open.
“Carla!” she screamed. “Looking for this?”
Mendes aimed at her.
Rachel sprinted between the parked vehicles.
“Rachel!”
I started after her, but Dr. Patel grabbed me and dragged me behind the SUV.
“She’s giving us a chance.”
A bullet shattered the rear window above us.
Dr. Patel opened the passenger door.
“Get in.”
“Not without Rachel.”
“You can save your wife or your daughter. Not both.”
Before I could answer, my phone vibrated in my pocket.
I pulled it out.
Unknown number.
A video call.
Lily’s face appeared on the screen.
She was sitting in a dark room, tears running down her cheeks.
“Daddy?”
“Lily! Where are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head.
A woman stepped into view behind her.
She had Rachel’s height, my dark hair—
and Lily’s eyes.
Evelyn Cross.
She leaned toward the camera.
“Mr. Carter, I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then bring my daughter back.”
“She was never yours.”
Lily began crying harder.
“Daddy, please come get me.”
Evelyn looked down at her, and something painful crossed her face.
Then she stared into the camera again.
“You have thirty minutes to bring me the flash drive.”
“I don’t have it.”
Evelyn’s expression changed.
“Then find it.”
The camera moved.
For the first time, I saw the room behind Lily.
An old classroom.
Faded alphabet posters.
Small desks covered in dust.
And on the wall, a wooden sign:
MAPLEWOOD ELEMENTARY — ORIGINAL BUILDING, CLOSED 2019.
Evelyn gave me an address.
Then she said the words that made my blood run cold.
“Come alone, or Lily will finally learn what her mother did to her real baby.”
The call ended.
I stared at the black screen.
Dr. Patel stared at me.
“What did she mean?” I asked.
“She’s angry,” Patel said quickly. “She wants to hurt Rachel.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
A terrible possibility formed in my mind.
“Our baby died during delivery,” I said. “That’s what Rachel told me.”
Dr. Patel looked away.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Another gunshot echoed through the garage.
This time, Rachel screamed.
I grabbed Dr. Patel by the front of her coat.
“What happened to our baby?”
She looked directly into my eyes.
“Your baby didn’t die during delivery.”
My hands went numb.
“Then when?”
Dr. Patel’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“Three hours after Rachel took Lily.”
Behind us, Detective Mendes shouted that she had the flash drive.
And somewhere between the parked police cars, my wife stopped screaming……………………….
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 4…
