Chapter 3 - TWO BABIES WITHOUT NAMES
The hospital stopped calling either infant June or Hannah’s chosen name, Ava.
Until identity could be established, they became Baby A and Baby B.
Baby A was the girl found in my bassinet.
Baby B was the girl recovered from the dark diagnostic room.
Both were medically stable.
Baby B had become mildly cold while left alone, but her temperature normalized beneath a warmer.
The neonatal team placed the infants in separate secured rooms under constant observation. New bands were attached with four witnesses present.
Neither Luke nor any relative could enter.
Detective Mara Ellis from the city police arrived with a hospital investigator and a child-protection worker.
She interviewed Eli first with a trained specialist.
I watched through glass.
Eli held a stuffed bear against his chest while describing what he saw.
He had left the family waiting room to find Luke. Near the service corridor, he saw his father pushing one bassinet and pulling another.
Luke removed the babies’ blankets.
He used a small silver tool to open the ankle bands.
Then he carried one baby into the diagnostic room and placed the other in my bassinet.
“Did your father see you?” the specialist asked.
“After.”
“What did he say?”
“He said I was confused.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“He said if I scared Claire, she would send me away.”
My hand tightened around the bed rail.
Eli’s mother, Amelia, died when he was two. I had been in his life since he was three.
Luke often reminded him that I was not legally his mother.
I had believed the comments were clumsy grief.
Now they sounded like control.
Detective Ellis interviewed me after the medication became lighter.
“Did you know Mrs. Reed before today?”
“No.”
“Did you use fertility treatment?”
“Yes. Mercer Reproductive Center.”
Hannah had used the same clinic.
Neither of us knew that until the detective asked.
Luke’s family owned Mercer Neonatal Systems, which supplied infant tags, bassinets, and monitoring software. The fertility center belonged to a hospital partnership in which Mercer Health Ventures held a large financial interest.
My husband had access to both institutions.
I remembered a strange appointment during my twenty-first week.
A genetics counselor asked for a second blood sample because of a laboratory discrepancy. Luke took me home before the appointment ended.
He said the clinic had mislabeled a vial.
I never saw the result.
Hannah remembered the same thing.
Her prenatal chart contained a canceled consultation she had never requested.
Detective Ellis wrote down both details.
“Did Luke ever suggest the baby might not be biologically yours?”
“No.”
“Did he ever discuss adoption, surrogacy, or embryo donation?”
“No.”
The question frightened me.
June had been conceived through IVF after two miscarriages. Luke and I created four embryos.
We were told one embryo had been transferred and three remained frozen.
Hannah and Ben Reed had created embryos at the same clinic during the same month.
The detective did not speculate.
She requested preservation of all fertility records, genetic samples, embryo logs, security footage, and Mercer system data.
Luke was arrested before midnight for assaulting Eli, interfering with an infant-identification system, and obstructing the hospital lockdown.
More charges would depend on evidence.
He asked to speak to me.
I refused.
At two in the morning, Camille entered with preliminary blood-type results.
Baby A’s type could not have come from Hannah and Ben’s recorded blood types.
Baby B’s type could not have come from Luke and me.
May you like
The bands had been switched.
But the blood suggested something had gone wrong long before delivery.
