Chapter 2
The room went silent.
Even the baby’s crying upstairs seemed far away.
Ethan’s hands were still around my arms, holding me upright.
But his grip had changed.
Not painful.
Just uncertain.
“Another man’s name?” he asked.
Linda stood in the doorway.
For the first time all afternoon, she looked pleased.
I closed my eyes.
I had imagined telling Ethan a hundred different ways.
In bed.
At breakfast.
Maybe while he held our son and I explained everything carefully.
I had never imagined telling him while I was bleeding through my clothes with dirty mop water running down my face.
“Ethan,” I whispered. “Please let me explain.”
Linda laughed.
“That’s usually what guilty people say.”
“Get out,” Ethan told her.
“Oh, I think I’ll stay for this.”
He turned so quickly that she stopped smiling.
“Leave.”
Linda stared at him.
Then at me.
“You’ll regret choosing her.”
The door slammed behind her.
A few seconds later, I heard her car start.
Ethan didn’t speak.
The baby cried again.
I pushed away from the counter.
“I need to get Noah.”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“You can barely stand.”
“He needs me.”
“He needs you conscious.”
There was anger in his voice.
But not at the baby.
Maybe not even at me.
Ethan lifted me carefully and carried me toward the living room sofa.
The movement sent a sharp pain through my lower abdomen.
I gasped.
His face went pale.
“That’s it. We’re going to the hospital.”
“Ethan—”
“No argument.”
He grabbed his phone.
I caught his wrist.
“Before we go, I need to tell you.”
He looked down at me.
His jaw was tight.
“Who is the man?”
I swallowed.
“Daniel Brooks.”
The name hit him.
I saw it in his face.
He knew Daniel.
Everyone in our family knew Daniel.
My older sister Emily’s husband.
Ethan stepped backward.
“My brother-in-law?”
“It isn’t what you think.”
“What exactly am I supposed to think, Rachel?”
“Daniel isn’t Noah’s father.”
“Then why is his name on the hospital paperwork?”
“Because he was my emergency contact.”
Ethan stared at me.
I could see the confusion fighting with suspicion.
“Emergency contact?”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t make sense. I’m your husband.”
“I know.”
“So why wasn’t my name there?”
My throat tightened.
Because that was the part I had been terrified to explain.
“Because I changed it before the delivery.”
His eyes hardened.
“Why?”
I looked toward the stairs.
Noah was still crying.
Ethan followed my gaze.
Then he went upstairs without another word.
I heard his footsteps.
The nursery door opened.
The crying softened.
A minute later, Ethan came downstairs carrying our son against his chest.
Noah looked impossibly small in his arms.
Ten days old.
Dark hair.
Tiny fists.
Completely innocent.
Ethan sat in the chair opposite me.
“Talk.”
I took a breath.
“Three weeks before Noah was born, I got a call.”
“From who?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did they say?”
“That you had been in an accident.”
Ethan frowned.
“What?”
“They knew your office address. They knew your car. They knew what time you usually left work.”
His expression changed.
“They told me you’d been taken to St. Matthew’s Hospital.”
“I was never—”
“I know that now.”
I wiped my eyes.
“But I didn’t know then. I panicked. I called you. You didn’t answer.”
“I was in a meeting.”
“I called your office. The receptionist said you’d left the building.”
“I went to the warehouse.”
“I know.”
He stared at me.
“What happened next?”
“I drove toward St. Matthew’s.”
His eyes widened.
“You were almost nine months pregnant.”
“I thought you were hurt.”
“Rachel…”
“Halfway there, someone called again.”
“Same person?”
“I think so.”
“What did they say?”
“They told me not to go to the main entrance.”
Ethan held Noah tighter.
“They said there had been a security problem and someone would meet me behind the parking garage.”
His face drained of color.
“You went?”
“No.”
“Thank God.”
“I almost did.”
My voice cracked.
“I was three blocks away when Daniel called me.”
“Why?”
“He’d been trying to reach Emily. She was with Mom, and he accidentally called me instead.”
Ethan looked confused.
“I was crying so hard he could barely understand me. I told him you were hurt.”
“And?”
“He said he’d spoken to you twenty minutes earlier.”
Ethan went completely still.
“Daniel had called me about his truck.”
“I know.”
“I pulled over. Daniel came to get me.”
I looked at Noah.
“Ten minutes after he arrived, the first caller called again.”
“What did they say?”
“They asked why I had stopped.”
Ethan slowly stood.
“They were watching you.”
“Yes.”
His face transformed.
Fear replaced anger.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Daniel wanted to call the police immediately. I begged him not to until we knew what was happening.”
“That was insane.”
“I was scared.”
“You should have told me!”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“That night.”
He shook his head.
“No, you didn’t.”
“You came home furious because the Peterson account had collapsed. You’d been awake for almost thirty hours. Then Linda arrived.”
His mouth closed.
“She said I was stressing you out over nothing. She told me pregnancy hormones were making me paranoid.”
Ethan stared at the floor.
“She knew?”
I nodded.
“I told her enough for her to know someone had called me.”
“What did she say?”
“She said she would handle it.”
He looked up sharply.
“What?”
“I know. I was stupid.”
“No. What exactly did she say?”
I tried to remember.
“She said she knew someone in hospital administration. She asked me to send her the number that called.”
Ethan’s breathing became slow.
Controlled.
Dangerously controlled.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
“The calls stopped.”
He looked toward the front door.
“So you thought it was over.”
“For two days.”
“And then?”
“I got an envelope.”
“Where?”
“In our mailbox.”
My hands started shaking.
“There was a photograph inside.”
“A photograph of what?”
“Me.”
Ethan’s face changed again.
“Me asleep in our bedroom.”
Noah made a tiny sound.
Neither of us moved.
“That’s why I changed my emergency contact,” I said. “I was scared somebody had access to information about us. Your mother had started making comments about my hospital registration. About which hospital we were using. About the induction date.”
“You thought I was involved?”
“No.”
His voice rose.
“Then why remove my name?”
“Because the caller knew everything connected to you.”
He looked wounded.
“I thought if my emergency paperwork showed Daniel instead, maybe whoever was watching me wouldn’t know when I went into labor.”
“Why Daniel?”
“Because he’s a federal investigator.”
Ethan blinked.
Daniel’s job had always been described vaguely at family dinners as government compliance work.
I knew more because Emily had told me.
“He told me if anything strange happened, I should put his number down.”
“And you never told me any of this.”
“I was going to.”
“When?”
“After Noah was born.”
“That was ten days ago.”
I lowered my eyes.
“Then Noah had breathing problems. Then I couldn’t sleep. Then your mother came every day. Then you went back to work.”
“Because Mom said she was helping you.”
“She wasn’t.”
I barely got the words out.
Ethan sat beside me.
“What has she been doing?”
I didn’t answer.
His voice softened.
“Rachel.”
I looked at him.
“She takes my phone.”
“What?”
“She says I need rest, so she puts it downstairs.”
“What else?”
“She decides when I eat.”
His expression turned sick.
“She says nursing women gain too much weight if they use breastfeeding as an excuse.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“She wakes Noah when he’s sleeping because she says babies need schedules.”
“What else?”
Tears rolled down my face.
“She took my pain medication.”
Ethan stood so fast the chair scraped backward.
“She did what?”
“She said it made me lazy.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
His hands clenched.
“I’m calling the police.”
“No.”
He stared at me.
“Rachel, she forced you onto the floor while you’re bleeding. She took medication prescribed after childbirth. She may have had information about someone stalking you.”
“We don’t know she had anything to do with those calls.”
“You’re defending her?”
“I’m trying not to accuse somebody without proof.”
Ethan let out a broken laugh.
“Ten minutes ago I thought you cheated on me.”
“I know.”
“And now I’m wondering if my own mother has been terrorizing my wife.”
His phone rang.
We both jumped.
The screen showed Linda.
Ethan rejected the call.
It rang again.
He rejected it again.
Then a message appeared.
His face changed as he read it.
“What?” I asked.
He handed me the phone.
The message said:
YOU SHOULD CHECK THE SAFE BEFORE YOU BELIEVE HER.
Ethan looked toward the hallway.
Our home safe was in his office.
“What’s in the safe?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
He carried Noah upstairs and placed him safely in the bassinet.
Then he came back.
I followed him despite the pain.
“Rachel, sit down.”
“No.”
He didn’t argue.
We entered his office.
The safe was behind a framed photograph.
Ethan entered the code.
The door opened.
He reached inside.
Then froze.
There was an envelope sitting on top of our documents.
He pulled it out.
My name was written across the front.
Inside were six photographs.
Me leaving my obstetrician’s office.
Me buying groceries.
Daniel helping me into his truck the day of the fake hospital call.
Me walking into the hospital to give birth.
And one photograph of Noah through the nursery window.
Ethan’s hands shook.
“There’s more.”
At the bottom of the envelope was a copy of a paternity test.
Ethan read it.
Then looked at me.
The paper claimed there was a zero percent probability that Ethan was Noah’s father.
My stomach dropped.
“That’s fake.”
Ethan said nothing.
“Ethan, it’s fake.”
His eyes moved across the page.
“The test date is six days ago.”
“I never gave anyone permission to test Noah.”
“Neither did I.”
We looked at each other.
Then both looked toward the stairs.
Someone had taken a sample from our ten-day-old baby.
Without our knowledge.
Ethan grabbed his phone.
This time he didn’t call his mother.
He called Daniel.
Daniel answered on the second ring.
“Ethan?”
“Get to my house.”
“What happened?”
“Someone tested my son’s DNA.”
Silence.
Then Daniel’s voice became sharp.
“Do not touch anything else.”
“Why?”
“Because Emily received a package this morning too.”
My blood turned cold.
“What was inside?” Ethan asked.
Daniel answered.
“A photograph of Rachel in your bedroom.”
The same photograph I had received weeks ago.
But Daniel wasn’t finished.
“And there was a note.”
“What did it say?”
May you like
Daniel took a breath.
“It said Rachel should have gone to the parking garage when she was told.”
