Chapter 7 - The Woman in Scrubs
The fire was a diversion.
That was what the officers said later.
At the time, all I knew was that alarms screamed, nurses rolled bassinets toward a secure evacuation corridor, and Ethan had disappeared up the stairs with two officers despite everyone telling him not to.
My incision burned as I forced myself into a wheelchair.
A nurse named Tasha pushed me toward the neonatal safe zone with Ava and Lily beside us.
“Please,” I said. “Take me to the seventh floor.”
“No.”
“My baby is there.”
“And if I take you into a fire four hours after surgery, I’ll have four patients instead of three.”
I hated that she was right.
The sprinklers activated in the old surgical wing. Smoke poured into stairwell seven. Fire crews rushed past with masks and axes.
Then Ethan called.
I answered.
“Rose?”
“I have her.”
My whole body folded forward.
I sobbed so hard I could not speak.
He was crying too.
“She’s okay. She’s okay, Rachel.”
“What about Lauren?”
“She’s with Ortiz. Minor burn on her hand.”
“Marissa?”
Silence.
“She got away.”
“How?”
“She went through a maintenance hatch before the officers entered. The fire started in a supply closet behind her.”
“Someone helped her.”
“Yes.”
Ethan brought Rose down twenty minutes later.
She was wrapped in a gray emergency blanket, furious, hungry, and alive.
I pressed my face to her head and inhaled that warm newborn smell until I thought my lungs would burst.
Caleb stood beside us crying silently.
“There’s my Rosie,” he said.
The nurse scanned Rose’s heel tag.
It had been removed completely.
A temporary band was placed while two nurses independently verified her using footprints, delivery-room photographs, chart measurements, and the birthmark behind her ear.
Only after every check did they let me hold her without an officer in the room.
I thought the worst was over.
Then Detective Ortiz came back.
“Marissa had help leaving the seventh floor.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
“Who?”
“We pulled badge logs from the maintenance door.”
She showed us a name.
PATRICIA SHAW, RN.
The nurse who had called in sick.
Ortiz continued.
“We sent officers to her apartment. It’s empty. Closet cleared, refrigerator empty, no car.”
“She ran,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Why would a nurse risk prison for this?”
Ortiz glanced at Lauren, who had returned with a bandaged hand.
“That’s what we’re trying to determine.”
Lauren looked wrecked.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to me.
I stared at her.
“I can’t do this right now.”
She nodded and looked away.
A hospital technician entered carrying an evidence bag.
“We recovered this from Room 712.”
Inside was a disposable phone.
Ortiz powered it on.
Most messages were deleted.
One had arrived during the fire.
YOU HAVE THE CHILD. LEAVE THROUGH PHARMACY. PAYMENT TWO RELEASES AFTER CONFIRMATION.
The message was signed only with the letter D.
Everyone looked at Diane.
She was still in custody downstairs.
Ethan shook his head.
“No. My mother is a lot of things, but she wouldn’t text like that.”
Ortiz asked, “Who else knew the plan?”
Lauren’s face changed.
“My father.”
The room went silent.
Ethan stared at her.
“Dad’s been dead for eight years.”
Lauren slowly shook her head.
“I didn’t mean Dad.”
She looked toward me.
“I meant Mark’s father.”
My sister-in-law’s wealthy father-in-law had financed every fertility treatment she had ever undergone.
And suddenly, this was no longer just Diane’s obsession.
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