Chapter 5 - Mrs. Thornbury’s Confession
Mrs. Thornbury did not deny it.
That made me angrier.
I crossed the room before anyone could stop me.
“You took my baby.”
“Selene—”
“You carried her out of the NICU.”
“Yes.”
I slapped her.
The sound cracked through the dining room.
Stellan moved once, then stopped himself.
Mrs. Thornbury did not raise a hand.
She looked at me with wet eyes.
“You have every right.”
“Don’t tell me what I have a right to.”
Fern started crying.
I picked her up immediately.
“I woke up after an emergency C-section and couldn’t find her. A nurse told me she had stopped breathing. I thought my child was dying somewhere without me.”
“I know.”
“No. You know the sentence. You don’t know the feeling.”
Mrs. Thornbury closed her eyes.
“You’re right.”
Stellan stepped forward.
“Why did you take her?”
Mrs. Thornbury looked at him.
“Because your father ordered me to.”
Stellan’s face went cold.
“To kill her?”
“No.”
The answer surprised all of us.
“He ordered me to move her off the public floor and create a second medical identity.”
“Why?” I demanded.
“He said someone had already paid two hospital employees for access to Selene’s chart.”
“Who?”
“He would not tell me.”
Stellan shook his head.
“My father never protected weakness.”
Mrs. Thornbury gave him a long look.
“Your father protected what he considered his.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No. It isn’t.”
She explained the rest.
The plan had been temporary.
Fern’s blood sample was entered under the name Ava Cross so anyone searching Selene Hart’s baby would hit a dead end. My daughter was moved through a service corridor, kept in a private room for seven hours, then returned to the public NICU under my name after the outside threat disappeared.
I stared at her.
“So Fern was always Fern.”
“Yes.”
“No baby switch.”
“No.”
I held my daughter tighter.
Relief came so hard it hurt.
Then I remembered the grave.
“Why did Stellan think Ava was real?”
Mrs. Thornbury looked away.
“That was not part of the plan.”
Stellan’s voice dropped.
“Who changed it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Someone took a fake identity meant to protect Fern and built an entire dead child around it.”
“Yes.”
“They showed me prenatal records.”
“I never created those.”
“They gave me DNA.”
“Fern’s.”
“They gave me a coffin.”
Mrs. Thornbury’s face broke.
“I know.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Stellan slammed his hand into the dining table.
Fern screamed.
He stepped back instantly.
I glared at him.
“Control yourself.”
His breathing was hard.
“You’re right.”
That answer surprised me.
Before Mrs. Thornbury could continue, I carried Fern to the window and bounced her gently until the crying stopped.
Stellan stood a few feet away.
He looked like he wanted to come closer and was forcing himself not to.
I noticed.
That made me angrier because it made him seem human.
“Did you ever look for me?” I asked.
His eyes lifted.
“Yes.”
“How hard?”
“Hard enough that three men were hospitalized for lying to me.”
I stared at him.
“That is not romantic.”
“I wasn’t trying to be romantic.”
“Good.”
He looked at Fern.
“I found your old apartment empty. Your phone disconnected. Your employer said you had quit. Then my father told me you had left Chicago.”
“I moved two blocks away because the rent went up.”
His expression darkened.
“Someone made me look in the wrong places.”
“And someone made me believe you never looked at all.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Fern reached toward him.
I hesitated, then let him take her.
He held her like he had been practicing in his head all morning.
“Whatever else happens,” I said, “you do not get to disappear again.”
His answer came immediately.
“I won’t.”
I wanted to believe him.
That scared me more than not believing him.
Mrs. Thornbury reached into the black box and removed one final envelope.
“I hired Selene because the protection stopped working.”
I stared at her.
“You hired me on purpose?”
“Yes.”
My anger came back.
“You knew who I was.”
“Yes.”
“You knew who Fern was.”
“Yes.”
“And you let me walk into this house without warning me?”
“I needed Stellan to see her before anyone could convince him she was a threat.”
“What changed?”
Mrs. Thornbury handed the envelope to Stellan.
Inside was a photograph of me carrying groceries outside my apartment.
Fern was in a carrier on my chest.
The picture had been taken from across the street two weeks earlier.
On the back, someone had written:
THE DEAD GIRL IS STILL BREATHING.
Below that was a date.
Tomorrow.
And one sentence.
FINISH WHAT GIDEON CROSS STARTED.
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