Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Died
Nathan forgot how to speak.
Rebecca had always hated silence. During their marriage, she filled it with music, questions, half-finished stories, ridiculous observations about strangers in grocery stores.
Now she stood three feet away and let silence crush him.
"My daughter?"
"Keep your voice down."
"You let me bury you. You let me spend seven years believing you were dead, and now you're telling me I have a six-year-old daughter?"
Rebecca flinched.
"I didn't let you do anything."
"Then explain it."
She laughed once, without humor.
"You still think I had choices."
Nathan took a step forward.
Rebecca backed against the gate.
He stopped immediately.
That reaction hurt worse than anger.
She was afraid of him.
"Rebecca. I would never hurt you."
Her eyes hardened.
"That's not what your letter said."
"What letter?"
She looked at him for a long moment, then unlocked the gate.
"Not here."
Twenty minutes later, Nathan sat at the kitchen table of a second-floor apartment above a laundromat. It was small but warm. A child's drawings covered the refrigerator. A chipped ceramic bowl held apples on the counter.
Lucy was still with the neighbor.
Rebecca placed a metal cashbox on the table.
"Everything I kept is in here."
Inside were hospital bracelets, copies of medical records, newspaper clippings about her death, and a thick cream envelope.
Nathan recognized the embossed Archer family seal.
Rebecca pushed it toward him.
"Read it."
The letter was dated five days after the crash.
Rebecca,
Your actions have created unacceptable risk for my family. For your own safety and mine, you will remain under private medical supervision. You will have no contact with Nathan Archer. Any child resulting from this marriage will be placed under Archer family guardianship until your mental stability can be evaluated.
Nathan stared at the signature.
His signature.
It looked perfect.
"I didn't write this."
Rebecca's mouth tightened.
"I knew you'd say that."
"Because it's true."
"The doctor showed me the original."
"What doctor?"
"Dr. Malcolm Pruitt."
Nathan knew the name.
Pruitt had treated his father before his death.
A cold line moved down Nathan's back.
"Where were you?"
Rebecca sat opposite him.
"I woke up two days after the crash in a private clinic outside Dayton. My ribs were broken. I had a concussion. I was pregnant, though I didn't know it before the accident."
Nathan gripped the table.
"They told me you had survived. Then they told me you refused to see me. After that they showed me this letter."
"Rebecca—"
"They said I had stolen confidential files from Archer Holdings. They said if I contacted you, they'd charge me with corporate theft and prove I was unstable. They told me your family had enough evidence to take my baby the minute she was born."
Nathan looked around the apartment.
"How did you get out?"
"A nurse named Nora Bell figured out I wasn't there voluntarily. She helped me leave two weeks after Lucy was born. She found me an identity. Rebecca Blake."
"Why didn't you call me after you escaped?"
Rebecca's eyes filled.
"Because by then I had seen a second document."
She reached into the cashbox and removed a photocopy of a form.
Nathan recognized the heading.
EMERGENCY CHILD PROTECTION DIRECTIVE.
Mother: Rebecca Archer.
Unborn Child: Baby Archer.
Reason: Maternal instability, theft risk, possible flight.
Authorized Family Representative: Nathan Archer.
At the bottom was his electronic signature.
Below it, one sentence had been highlighted in yellow.
REMOVE CHILD IMMEDIATELY AFTER DELIVERY IF SUBJECT ATTEMPTS UNAUTHORIZED CONTACT.
Nathan felt sick.
"I never signed this."
Rebecca looked at him with seven years of fear in her face.
"Then someone spent seven years making me believe you did."
---
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