Chapter 2 - INFANT V-17
They moved through the woods until the fire was only a glow behind them.
Thomas knew an old logging road that curved north toward an abandoned ranger station.
Sarah followed him while questions crowded her mind.
Seventeen babies.
Veil.
Evan.
The photographs.
Nothing belonged together.
Inside the ranger station, Thomas locked the door and lowered himself against the wall.
Sarah placed Lucy inside an old wooden desk drawer lined with her coat.
The baby settled immediately.
Sarah turned.
“Now tell me everything.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“Six months ago, I was assigned a missing-person case.”
“A woman named Natalie Briggs.”
Sarah knew the name.
Natalie was a county records clerk who disappeared after leaving work.
“They said she ran away.”
“She didn’t.”
Thomas pulled a folded piece of paper from beneath his vest.
“I found evidence Natalie had been copying sealed adoption records.”
Sarah frowned.
“What does that have to do with Lucy?”
“The records weren’t normal adoptions.”
Thomas explained that for more than twenty years, pregnant women placed in certain protected-witness programs had been secretly moved through a county-owned property known unofficially as Veil House.
Some were domestic violence victims.
Some were witnesses.
Some were informants.
Several were undocumented young women promised protection.
The files said their babies had been legally adopted.
But Thomas discovered signatures that didn’t match.
Birth certificates were altered.
Hospital records vanished.
Women disappeared.
“And nobody investigated?”
“Somebody did.”
“Who?”
“Natalie.”
Thomas looked toward Lucy.
“Then Natalie disappeared too.”
Sarah’s stomach tightened.
“You think Evan killed her?”
“I don’t know.”
“But he’s involved.”
“Yes.”
“Why mark Lucy?”
Thomas hesitated.
“That’s the part I didn’t understand until five days ago.”
“The day she was born?”
Thomas nodded.
“When the nurse put Lucy’s bracelet on, I saw V-17 printed beneath the barcode.”
Sarah remembered.
She had assumed it was some internal hospital code.
“I asked why.”
“The nurse panicked.”
“Then she disappeared from the maternity floor.”
Sarah slowly sat down.
“Which nurse?”
“Marian Bell.”
The woman who had held Sarah’s hand during labor.
The woman who had kissed Lucy’s forehead.
The woman who had whispered, “Keep this baby close.”
Thomas continued.
“I found Marian’s apartment empty.”
“Then Evan told me to stop digging.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you had just given birth.”
“And because I didn’t know whom I could trust.”
Sarah looked toward the window.
“You trusted Evan.”
Thomas laughed bitterly.
“I did.”
Lucy began fussing.
Sarah lifted her.
As she adjusted the blanket, something scratched her wrist.
A tiny piece of metal protruded from the edge of Lucy’s hospital bracelet.
Thomas noticed it.
“Wait.”
He carefully removed the bracelet.
Inside the plastic band was something thinner than a fingernail.
A microSD card.
Sarah stared at it.
“Was that there before?”
Thomas shook his head.
“No.”
“Then Marian put it there.”
Thomas looked at the door.
“Or someone who wanted us to find it.”
A vehicle engine suddenly sounded outside.
Headlights swept across the ranger station windows.
Thomas killed the lantern.
Someone stepped onto the porch.
Then a woman’s voice called through the door.
“Thomas?”
Sarah’s eyes widened.
Thomas raised his gun.
The voice came again.
May you like
“It’s Marian.”
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