Chapter 8 - THE OTHER BABY
The crying on Evelyn’s phone changed everything.
At first, police believed she was using a recording.
Then investigators searched the River Street warehouse.
They found Preston’s phone.
Blood on one corner.
No Preston.
No Evelyn.
No infant.
But inside the hidden archive, they found a box marked with one name.
CHARLOTTE.
The box contained hospital records from twenty-nine years earlier.
Charlotte had given birth at nineteen.
I stared at the document.
“I didn’t know she had a child.”
Rachel shook her head.
“Neither did the public.”
Torres continued turning pages.
The child was a boy.
Born six weeks early.
Named Nicholas.
According to the official record, Nicholas died eleven hours after birth.
But another document contradicted it.
A private transfer authorization.
The newborn had been moved from Harper Medical Center to a clinic in Maryland.
No death certificate from Maryland existed.
Instead, someone had created one in New York.
Two states.
Two records.
One dead baby who may not have been dead.
“Why?” I asked.
Torres looked at the papers.
“Charlotte was nineteen.”
“Unmarried.”
“Henry was preparing to take Harper Holdings public.”
“A scandal may have been considered inconvenient.”
I thought about Evelyn.
“She took Charlotte’s baby.”
“Possibly.”
“And told her he died?”
“We don’t know yet.”
My phone buzzed.
A message from Charlotte.
Now you understand why I left.
I stared at it.
Then another.
My mother stole my son.
A third.
I have spent twenty-nine years trying to learn where she sent him.
I typed back before Torres could stop me.
Was the crying Nicholas?
Charlotte answered.
No.
My stomach tightened.
Then whose baby was it?
No response.
Torres took the phone.
“We need to locate Charlotte.”
“You think she knows?”
“I think everyone in this family knows one piece and lies about three others.”
Rachel almost smiled grimly.
“That may be the first complete truth of the day.”
Investigators traced the clinic listed on Nicholas’s transfer.
It had closed nineteen years earlier.
The former director was dead.
But one nurse remained alive.
Her name was Margaret Sloan.
She lived outside Baltimore.
Federal agents reached her before sunset.
The interview was conducted remotely.
Margaret appeared on the screen as a thin woman in her seventies.
When shown Nicholas Harper’s transfer record, she closed her eyes.
“I wondered if this would ever come back.”
Torres leaned closer.
“You remember him?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“The baby arrived with two private security men.”
“Names?”
“I don’t know.”
“One had a scar on his hand.”
Graham would have been a child then.
Not him.
Maybe Harold.
Maybe someone else.
“Was the child sick?”
“No.”
“He was premature.”
“But stable.”
“Who ordered the transfer?”
“A woman.”
“Name?”
“She called herself Mrs. Harper.”
My throat tightened.
“Evelyn?”
Margaret looked at a photograph.
“Yes.”
“What happened to Nicholas?”
“He stayed three days.”
“Then another couple took him.”
“Adoption?”
Margaret’s expression filled with shame.
“No legitimate adoption I ever saw.”
“Who were the couple?”
“I never knew their real names.”
“Where did they take him?”
“Virginia.”
“Did Charlotte know?”
Margaret looked horrified.
“The mother was told the baby died.”
I closed my eyes.
I suddenly understood Charlotte in a way I did not want to.
Evelyn had taken her newborn.
Erased him.
Then spent decades calling her unstable.
The pattern was older than me.
Older than Ivy.
This was what Evelyn did when motherhood interfered with power.
Torres asked,
“Do you know where Nicholas is now?”
“No.”
“But I know something else.”
“What?”
“Mrs. Harper came back.”
“When?”
“Three years later.”
“Why?”
“She wanted the original transfer records.”
“Did you give them to her?”
“No.”
“I lied.”
“I told her they had been destroyed.”
“What did you do with them?”
Margaret looked toward the camera.
“I mailed them to Henry Harper.”
The room went silent.
Henry knew.
Again.
Maybe not immediately.
But eventually.
“What did Henry do?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“He called me once.”
“He asked whether the child could be found.”
“What did you say?”
“That I believed so.”
“Then?”
“He never called again.”
Torres looked at the file.
Henry’s hidden archive might contain the answer.
River Street investigators searched until midnight.
They found no file labeled Nicholas.
But behind the Charlotte box, they found an old Polaroid.
A boy around four years old.
Dark hair.
Serious eyes.
Standing beside a wooden fence.
On the back, Henry had written:
N. — SAFE FOR NOW.
Then beneath it:
H.P. knows.
Harold Pike.
Again.
I felt rage rising.
Every road led back to Harold.
Torres demanded another search for him.
No result.
Then a call came from a toll camera system.
Graham’s vehicle had been spotted heading north.
A second car followed.
Registered to Harold Pike.
So Harold might not be a hostage at all.
He might be traveling willingly.
Preston was still missing.
Evelyn was still missing.
And the baby crying on the phone remained unidentified.
At 1:12 a.m., someone finally entered the Harper house.
The police alarm notified Torres.
A woman had arrived at the front gate.
Barefoot.
Bleeding from a cut near her hairline.
It was Charlotte.
She surrendered immediately.
Two officers brought her to the hospital because she refused to speak anywhere else.
When she entered my room, I recognized the Harper face immediately.
Same sharp cheekbones as Preston.
Same dark eyes.
But none of Evelyn’s polish.
Charlotte looked exhausted.
Human.
For once, a Harper entered the room without making it feel smaller.
She looked at Ivy.
Then stopped.
Her face collapsed.
She turned away.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?” I asked.
“Everything.”
“That’s a large category.”
She almost smiled.
Then she sat.
Torres stood near the door.
“Where is Graham?”
“Gone.”
“Where is Preston?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is Evelyn?”
“I know where she was forty minutes ago.”
“Where?”
Charlotte looked at me.
“The old Harper maternity residence.”
I frowned.
“What is that?”
“A property my grandmother opened in the seventies.”
“It closed fifteen years ago.”
“My mother still owns it through a shell company.”
“Why would she go there?”
Charlotte’s eyes filled with something dark.
“Because that’s where she hid records about Nicholas.”
Torres stepped forward.
“And the baby we heard?”
Charlotte’s jaw tightened.
“I don’t know.”
“But there should not be any infant there.”
A team was dispatched immediately.
Charlotte looked at me.
“You found Daniel’s ledger?”
“Yes.”
“Then my mother knows she’s finished.”
“You sound certain.”
“She has survived everything because evidence always disappeared.”
“Witnesses changed statements.”
“Files burned.”
“People accepted money.”
“But your father did something none of us knew.”
“He hid proof outside our system.”
I stared at her.
“Did Henry know my father?”
“More than you realize.”
“How?”
“He was planning to hire Daniel privately.”
“For what?”
“To audit the entire construction division.”
“So my father’s death helped Evelyn.”
“Yes.”
“And Harold?”
Charlotte hesitated.
“Yes.”
“What does Harold gain?”
“My mother’s survival.”
“But he’s supposedly exposing her.”
“He exposed enough to make himself valuable.”
I thought of Graham’s warning.
Harold showed me the part of the archive that protected him.
Charlotte continued.
“My father suspected Harold was taking money from both sides.”
“Henry paid him to investigate Evelyn.”
“Evelyn paid him to hide what he found.”
“What about Graham?”
“Graham grew up believing loyalty to the Harpers was his inheritance.”
“Then he learned his father planned to blame every criminal act on him if authorities ever came.”
“So he came to you.”
“Yes.”
“Why steal my bag?”
“He panicked.”
“About what?”
Charlotte looked down.
“The flash drive didn’t only contain the nursery export.”
My blood chilled.
“What else was on it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
She looked at me.
“Harold added something.”
“When?”
“Before the gala.”
“How?”
“He had temporary access to the drive when he told you to verify it.”
I remembered meeting Harold in a café.
He had inserted the drive into his laptop.
He claimed he was checking whether the file opened correctly.
I had watched him.
Or thought I had.
“What did he add?”
Charlotte leaned forward.
“A video of my father.”
“Henry?”
“Yes.”
“Recorded the night before he died.”
“Why would Harold hide that on my drive?”
“Because he knew police would seize anything connected to you after the gala.”
“He was using you to transport evidence.”
I wanted to scream.
“What does Henry say?”
“I’ve only heard part of it.”
“What part?”
Charlotte’s voice dropped.
“My father names the person he believed poisoned him.”
Torres moved closer.
“Who?”
Charlotte looked toward the door.
Then at Ivy.
Then at me.
“Not Evelyn.”
My breath caught.
“Then who?”
Before she answered, Torres’s phone rang.
The team had reached the maternity residence.
The building was empty.
Evelyn was gone.
But in one upstairs room, they found a crib.
Warm bottle.
Fresh blanket.
An infant had been there minutes earlier.
On the wall above the crib, someone had pinned a photograph.
Charlotte at nineteen.
Holding newborn Nicholas.
Beneath it was a second photograph.
A recent one.
A man in his late twenties walking into the Harper Grand Hotel.
I recognized him.
He had been at the gala.
He stood near the stage when the archive appeared.
He was the technician who claimed he had lost control of the screens.
The same man who helped us replay security footage.
Charlotte took one look and started crying.
“No.”
Torres turned.
“You know him?”
Charlotte touched the screen.
“My God.”
“Charlotte.”
May you like
She looked at us.
“That’s Nicholas.”
