Chapter 3 - The Discovery on Floor Three
Downstairs in the neonatal intensive care unit, the digital clocks ticked past 5:00 AM.
Nurse Rebecca Lin stood over the small, clear plastic bassinet where the abandoned baby boy slept. His breathing had stabilized thanks to the warm blankets, intravenous fluids, and round-the-clock monitoring, but his tiny face still bore the pale, fragile look of an infant who had entered the world in terror and cold.
Rebecca reached down and picked up the folded blue blanket that security had recovered from the entry stairs. She traced her finger over the clumsy, hand-stitched letter T in the corner.
The door to the NICU quieted as Dr. Shah walked in, accompanied by a hospital administrator and two uniformed police officers.
“Nurse Lin,” Dr. Shah said quietly, stopping beside the bassinet. “Has the preliminary toxicology and genetic panel come back?”
“Initial screenings are clean,” Rebecca replied, looking up with tired eyes. “He’s full-term, roughly six to eight pounds at birth. Based on the umbilical cord condition when he came in, he was born less than twelve hours ago.”
One of the police officers, Detective Miller, stepped forward, flipping open a small notebook. “And the mother? The neurology floor thinks she might be connected to this?”
“Dr. Shah believes so,” Rebecca said, her voice dropping lower. “And there’s something else. Look at the stitching on this blanket.”
She held up the blue flannel square so the light hit the corner.
“That’s not machine-made,” Rebecca continued. “It’s hand-embroidered with DMC cotton floss—shade number 792, French Navy. It’s a very specific craft thread. I happen to recognize it because I use the exact same brand for my own knitting projects.”
Dr. Shah turned to Detective Miller. “Upstairs on the neurology floor, Hannah Mercer woke up with retrograde amnesia covering the last six months. Her husband claimed she suffered a fall during a snowstorm and that their baby did not survive the emergency delivery in their car. Yet Hannah instinctively wrote the name Theo on a notepad when asked to recall anything from the blank months.”
Detective Miller’s eyes sharpened. “And the husband?”
“Mr. Mercer left the floor abruptly when we requested to search his vehicle,” Dr. Shah said. “Security hasn't been able to locate him in the parking garage.”
“Lock down the exits,” Detective Miller commanded, speaking sharply into his shoulder radio. “I want a full perimeter check on all parking structures, stairwells, and service elevators. If Evan Mercer is running, he has something much worse to hide than a tragic accident.”
Upstairs in Room 312, I sat alone in the quiet hospital room.
The morphine drip had been reduced, leaving my body aching with a dull, throbbing pain, but my mind was sharper than it had been since I woke up. The fog was burning away, replaced by terrifying, jagged pieces of a puzzle I never knew I was part of.
I remembered the snowstorm.
I remembered standing in the kitchen, holding a stack of mail, staring at a bank statement that showed our family accounts completely drained.
I remembered Evan standing by the counter, his voice cold, telling me that I was unstable, that my memory was failing, that I needed to sign papers transferring control of the house and my personal inheritance over to his name.
And then... the argument.
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The way he had looked at my pregnant belly not with joy, but with calculated resentment.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, ignoring the sharp protest of my stitches and the dizziness that spun my vision. I needed to see my baby. I needed to see Theo.
