Chapter 11 - The NICU Door
Mara ran.
She was not supposed to run after surgery. Her body told her this immediately.
Pain doubled her over in the hallway.
Claire caught her under the arm.
“Slow down.”
“My baby.”
“I know.”
“I said my baby.”
Claire stopped arguing.
At the NICU, security footage showed a man in scrubs entering through a staff corridor at 4:12 a.m.
He wore a mask and cap.
He used Daniel’s biometric profile.
But he was taller than Daniel.
“Can those scanners be fooled?” Hale asked.
The security director nodded. “If someone had a copied print template and admin access.”
Mara stared at the screen.
The man did not approach June’s incubator.
He opened a supply cabinet, took something, and left.
“What did he take?”
A nurse checked inventory.
“Newborn blood collection kits.”
Mara looked at Hale.
“DNA.”
He nodded.
Someone wanted proof of June’s bloodline.
Or wanted to change it.
They locked down June’s chart. No samples were to leave without Hale’s signoff.
For the first time, Mara felt safer.
That lasted six hours.
At noon, a family court petition arrived.
Daniel was asking for emergency custody of June.
He claimed Mara was mentally unstable and had endangered the baby during a suicide attempt.
Claire read the filing and said, “I’m going to prison.”
Mara looked at her.
“I’m serious. I’m going to find him and hit him with a chair.”
Mara smiled despite herself.
“Pick a light chair.”
Their laughter died quickly.
Daniel was alive.
Not only alive. Organized.
His attorney filed medical records, therapy notes, and statements from Evelyn.
He also filed one more document.
A prenatal paternity test showing Daniel was not June’s father.
Mara read it twice.
“This is fake.”
Hale said, “Probably.”
“Probably?”
“We need the lab.”
“I have never been with anyone else.”
Claire touched her shoulder. “I know.”
Mara looked at the lab name.
Northlake Genetics.
Something tugged at her memory.
Then she remembered the storage receipts from Unit 214.
One of Charles’s shell companies had paid Northlake for years.
She told Hale.
He left immediately.
That evening, Mara sat beside June’s incubator with her hand through the access port.
“Your family is a disaster,” she whispered.
The baby’s fingers closed around hers.
Mara cried quietly.
A nurse came in carrying an envelope.
“This was left at the desk for you.”
No sender.
Inside was a photograph of Daniel standing beside a man Mara had never seen.
On the back, one sentence:
May you like
YOUR HUSBAND ISN’T RUNNING FROM POLICE. HE’S RUNNING FROM HIS FATHER.
