Chapter 8
Marcus threw himself over me.
“DOWN!”
Another gunshot cracked through the hallway.
Then shouting.
Running footsteps.
Security yelled for everyone to lock doors.
Detective Ruiz drew her weapon and moved beside the entrance.
“Stay away from the door!”
The emergency lighting painted the room red.
My baby kicked violently.
I grabbed my stomach.
“Marcus.”
“I’m here.”
“The monitor.”
“It has battery backup.”
But the screen remained black.
The power outage had affected more than the lights.
The door handle moved.
Ruiz aimed her gun.
“Police! Identify yourself!”
“Doctor!”
A voice shouted from outside.
“My patient is in there!”
My doctor.
Ruiz cracked the door only after security confirmed him.
He hurried inside.
“We need to move Khloe.”
“Why?” Marcus asked.
“The backup generator for this section isn’t engaging.”
“That’s not an accident.”
“No.”
The doctor checked my pulse manually.
“We’re transferring critical patients to the east wing.”
Ruiz spoke into her radio.
Then cursed.
“What?”
“The elevators are locked.”
Marcus stared.
“Stairs?”
“I’m seven months pregnant,” I snapped.
“I can walk.”
The doctor shook his head.
“Not after contractions and trauma.”
A transport chair arrived.
Two officers formed an escort.
Ruiz stayed beside us.
We moved through the hallway.
Nurses were guiding patients under emergency lighting.
Some cried.
Some prayed.
The smell of smoke drifted from somewhere downstairs.
“Fire?” Marcus asked.
“Electrical room,” Ruiz replied.
Someone had sabotaged the hospital power.
We reached the stairwell.
I was placed in an evacuation chair.
Marcus refused to let go of my hand.
Halfway down one flight, Ruiz’s radio crackled.
“Suspect sighted on level six. Male, white coat. Possible firearm.”
“Cole?” Marcus whispered.
Ruiz didn’t answer.
Then another voice:
“Suspect moving toward maternity.”
My blood froze.
He wasn’t running away.
He was moving toward pregnant women.
Toward babies.
Toward me.
“We need another route,” Ruiz ordered.
We reversed.
The officer above us suddenly shouted.
“MOVE!”
A man appeared through the stairwell door.
White coat.
Surgical mask.
Gun.
Everything happened in seconds.
Ruiz fired.
The man ducked back.
The door slammed.
Marcus pulled the evacuation chair down the stairs so fast I screamed.
“Careful!”
“Sorry!”
We reached the next landing.
Officers rushed upward.
Gunfire echoed.
Then silence.
I could barely breathe.
The doctor checked me.
“You’re contracting again.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Not now.”
He almost smiled.
“I agree.”
We reached a functioning wing.
I was transferred to a bed.
The fetal monitor came alive.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
My son’s heartbeat.
I cried from relief.
Marcus pressed his forehead against my hand.
“He’s okay.”
“For now,” the doctor said.
I hated those words.
Ruiz entered twenty minutes later.
“We have a suspect in custody.”
“Cole?” I asked.
She nodded.
Dr. Adrian Cole had been hiding inside an unused administrative suite.
He had apparently entered the hospital using forged credentials.
He had accessed electrical systems with help from someone inside.
“Who helped him?” Marcus asked.
“We don’t know.”
Cole had been shot in the shoulder during his arrest.
He was alive.
Under guard.
I wanted answers immediately.
But Cole wasn’t talking.
Rachel wasn’t talking.
Isabella had told us only pieces.
Then the police found the server.
Cole had rented a storage unit under a fake name.
Inside were computers.
Medical records.
Frozen-sample transfer documents.
Photographs.
Contracts.
And files on dozens of patients.
Not just me.
Detective Ruiz sat beside my bed that evening.
“This may be bigger than your case.”
“How many women?”
“We don’t know.”
“Were they inseminated without consent?”
“We don’t know yet.”
I felt sick.
Marcus asked, “Was Daniel’s sample used on anyone else?”
“We’re investigating.”
The words were unbearable.
Daniel had been dead nine years.
His genetic material had apparently remained under the control of people willing to violate women for money.
Ruiz continued.
“We found communications between Cole and Rachel dating back eight years.”
“Before Daniel died?” Marcus asked.
“Yes.”
Marcus went still.
“How long before?”
“Several months.”
He sat down.
“What were they discussing?”
“Fertility treatment.”
“That’s not illegal.”
“No.”
Ruiz looked at him.
“But some messages discuss obtaining Daniel’s samples despite revoked authorization.”
Marcus looked like he couldn’t breathe.
“Daniel was right.”
“What?”
“He told me Rachel forged his signature.”
Ruiz nodded.
“There are messages suggesting that.”
“Did Cole help?”
“Yes.”
“And Daniel discovered it.”
“Possibly.”
Marcus stood.
“Then his accident…”
“We reopened the file.”
His face changed.
“You think they killed him.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You’re investigating it.”
“Yes.”
The room became silent.
I looked at Marcus.
His older brother.
His hero.
The man whose death had shaped his entire adult life.
“What happened to the car?” I asked.
Marcus looked at Ruiz.
“Destroyed years ago.”
“But evidence?”
“Some components were retained.”
His eyes widened.
“Which?”
“The ruptured brake line.”
Marcus stood so quickly the chair fell backward.
“You still have it?”
“The county evidence facility does.”
“Test it.”
“We already requested it.”
The next morning brought another shock.
The hospital employee who had helped Cole sabotage the system was identified.
Graham Pierce.
The senior administrator who had stood at the foot of my bed promising nothing would disappear.
He was arrested trying to leave the state.
Financial investigators found payments to him from the same shell company that paid Isabella.
“He covered up Cole’s clinic records,” Ruiz explained.
“For years?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Money.”
The simplest motive.
And maybe the ugliest.
Pierce had altered audit logs.
Deleted complaints.
Redirected internal investigations.
He had been protecting Cole.
Maybe protecting the hospital.
Maybe protecting himself.
I asked, “Did he know what happened to me?”
“Yes.”
The word crushed me.
“How long?”
“Since the day of your fertility appointment.”
I stared at the wall.
Someone knew.
An administrator knew I had been unconscious.
Knew an unauthorized procedure appeared in my chart.
And chose silence.
Marcus whispered, “I’ll destroy this hospital.”
Ruiz looked at him.
“Let the criminal process work first.”
“I mean legally.”
I looked at Marcus.
“No.”
He blinked.
“No?”
“I’ll do it.”
For the first time in days, strength moved through me.
“This happened to my body.”
He nodded slowly.
“You’re right.”
I looked at Ruiz.
“I want every victim found.”
“We do too.”
“And I want them told privately before this becomes news.”
“That will take coordination.”
“Then coordinate.”
She almost smiled.
“You’re recovering quickly.”
“I’m angry.”
“Sometimes that helps.”
By afternoon, news vans had gathered outside the hospital.
Someone leaked Isabella’s arrest.
My name wasn’t public yet.
It wouldn’t stay hidden long.
Then the lab examining Daniel’s brake line called.
Ruiz came into my room holding a folder.
Marcus stood.
She looked at him.
“The brake line did not fail from corrosion.”
His face went white.
“What?”
“It was cut.”
Marcus stopped breathing.
I reached for him.
This time he took my hand.
Ruiz continued.
“The original investigation was wrong.”
“Or buried,” I said.
She nodded.
“We’re investigating that too.”
Marcus cried silently.
Nine years of grief changed shape in one sentence.
Daniel hadn’t died in an accident.
Someone had killed him.
And the people who may have killed him had later used his genetic material to create my son.
Marcus looked at me.
Then at my belly.
“My brother.”
I squeezed his hand.
“We’re going to find out everything.”
That evening, Ruiz returned with a sealed envelope.
“What now?” I asked.
“We searched Rachel’s house more thoroughly.”
She handed me a photocopy.
It was a letter.
Handwritten.
Signed by Daniel.
Marcus recognized the handwriting immediately.
The letter was dated three days before his death.
Rachel,
I know what you and Adrian did. I revoked consent, and you had no right to move those samples. If you use them, sell them, or allow anyone else to use them, I will go to the police. Our marriage is over. This obsession has become dangerous. No child should ever be created through lies.
Daniel.
Marcus sobbed.
I read the last line again.
No child should ever be created through lies.
My son moved inside me.
I pressed both hands over him.
“You weren’t created by lies,” I whispered.
Marcus heard.
He looked at me.
“He was created by what they did to you.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“They committed the crime.”
I felt another kick.
“But he is not the crime.”
Marcus covered his face.
And for the first time since learning the truth, I knew exactly what I believed.
Whatever blood ran through my son’s veins…
He was innocent.
May you like
He was mine.
And nobody was taking him.
