Elise arrived twenty minutes later.
She did not knock.
She pushed through Ingrid’s front door wearing the same blue dress from dinner beneath an open coat.
Her face was wet from crying.
“Where is she?”
Nobody answered quickly enough.
Elise looked at me.
“Where is Lily?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said she’s alive.”
“The message says she is.”
“A message?”
Her voice rose.
“You called me and told me my dead baby is alive because an anonymous person texted you?”
“I told you what I know.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know the transfer record exists.”
She stopped.
I continued.
“I know the embryo was coded from my stored material.”
“No.”
“And Felix’s.”
She looked at him.
He stood near the window.
He looked as broken as she did.
Elise whispered, “You knew?”
“No.”
“You swear?”
“Yes.”
She crossed the room and slapped him.
The sound cracked through the silence.
Felix did not move.
“I thought she died.”
“I know.”
“You let your family control everything.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that!”
Her voice broke.
I had said almost the same thing.
Felix closed his eyes.
Elise hit his chest once with both hands.
Not hard.
Then again.
He let her.
“I held an empty blanket.”
The room went still.
“They gave me a blanket after delivery.”
Her voice shook violently.
“They said they had already taken her away.”
Ingrid covered her mouth.
Elise looked at Felix.
“I asked to see her.”
He whispered, “I didn’t know.”
“They said it would be better if I remembered her before.”
She folded forward.
Felix caught her instinctively.
For one second she allowed it.
Then pushed him away.
I looked toward Harold.
“Call Martin.”
He shook his head.
“He won’t answer.”
“Try.”
Harold called.
Voicemail.
Again.
Nothing.
Sabine tried.
Nothing.
I called.
Straight to voicemail.
Caroline said, “His phone is probably off.”
“Can you locate him?”
“Not legally.”
I looked at her.
“Since when has legality been the defining feature of tonight?”
She almost smiled.
Almost.
“I can check known properties.”
“Do it.”
Elise sat at the table.
“What did they do to me?”
Nobody answered.
So I sat across from her.
“They used you.”
Her eyes met mine.
“Like they used me.”
She started crying again.
I reached across the table.
Then stopped.
She looked at my hand.
After a moment, she took it.
That was the first time we touched voluntarily.
My husband’s mistress.
The gestational mother of a child genetically created from Felix and me.
A woman who had helped select me for a fraudulent marriage.
A woman whose body had been violated by the same system that violated mine.
There was no simple name for what we were to each other.
Victim and offender.
Rivals and allies.
Two women connected by choices other people had made with our bodies.
Felix watched from across the room.
He did not interrupt.
Caroline called ten minutes later.
“Martin owns no residential property personally.”
“Trust properties?”
“Several.”
“Anything suitable for a baby?”
“I found one possibility.”
“Where?”
“A private residence attached to a pediatric rehabilitation center.”
“Owned by?”
“A Blake Foundation subsidiary.”
Harold frowned.
“What center?”
“Rosehaven.”
His face changed.
Sabine noticed.
“Dad.”
He looked at her.
“Rosehaven was where Alice lived.”
His sister.
The woman erased from the family.
My stomach tightened.
“Address.”
Caroline gave it.
Forty minutes away.
We left immediately.
This time nobody argued about who came.
Elise rode with me.
Felix followed.
Sabine and Caroline took another car.
Harold stayed behind with Ingrid.
I did not trust them.
But I trusted Martin less.
Rosehaven stood behind iron gates on a wooded property.
The main building looked more like an old hotel than a medical center.
Three stories.
Brick.
White columns.
A security booth stood near the entrance.
The guard stepped outside.
“Facility’s closed.”
Caroline showed identification.
“We’re looking for Martin Voss.”
“No one by that name here.”
Elise leaned across me.
“A baby named Lily.”
The guard’s expression changed.
Tiny.
But enough.
Elise saw it.
“She’s here.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to.”
He stepped back.
“Ma’am, you need to leave.”
Caroline said, “We can call police.”
The guard looked toward the building.
“Do that.”
That surprised me.
He was not protecting Martin.
He was afraid.
Caroline called.
While we waited, a woman in scrubs appeared at a side door.
She saw our cars.
Then disappeared.
Two minutes later, my phone rang.
Unknown number.
Not a message.
A call.
I answered.
“Nora?”
A woman.
Older.
Familiar.
Margaret.
“Where are you?”
“Rosehaven.”
Silence.
Then:
“You moved faster than I expected.”
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“Lily?”
“Yes.”
Elise grabbed my arm.
I put the call on speaker.
Margaret continued.
“She’s alive.”
Elise began crying.
“Where?”
“Second floor.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because until the codicil was secured, Martin could move her.”
“You let Elise believe her baby was dead.”
Margaret went silent.
Elise stared at the phone.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Six months.”
Elise made a sound of disbelief.
“You monster.”
Margaret accepted it.
“Yes.”
“You let me grieve.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To keep Lily hidden.”
“From whom?”
“Martin.”
I stared at the phone.
“She’s in his facility.”
“Not under his control anymore.”
“What does that mean?”
“I arranged staff loyal to me.”
Caroline shook her head.
“This entire family thinks secret custody is protection.”
Margaret heard.
“Sometimes secrecy was the only tool I had.”
Elise snapped, “She was my baby.”
“Yes.”
“You had no right.”
“No.”
Margaret’s willingness to admit wrongdoing did not make it smaller.
It only made it harder to dismiss her as another Martin.
Police arrived.
Then everything moved quickly.
Records were requested.
Administrators appeared.
Lawyers were called.
The guard stopped resisting.
A nurse named Patricia led us upstairs.
Elise could barely walk.
I stayed beside her.
Felix followed several feet behind.
At the end of the hallway, Patricia stopped outside a room.
“She’s healthy.”
Elise covered her mouth.
“How old?”
“Seven months.”
“Does she—”
Her voice broke.
“Does she know anyone?”
Patricia nodded.
“Several nurses.”
That answer was devastating.
A seven-month-old knew caregivers.
Not her mother.
Not me.
Not Felix.
People paid to maintain a secret.
Patricia opened the door.
A crib stood beside the window.
A baby was awake inside.
Dark hair.
Round cheeks.
One sock missing.
She held a cloth giraffe and chewed its ear.
Elise stopped breathing.
“Lily.”
The baby looked toward us.
Elise stepped forward.
Then stopped.
She looked at me.
I understood.
Biologically, if the records were true, Lily came from my egg.
But Elise had carried her.
Felt her move.
Given birth.
Been told she died.
Neither of us knew what rights belonged where.
None of that mattered in the next ten seconds.
“Go,” I whispered.
Elise approached the crib.
Her hands shook.
“Hi.”
Lily stared.
Elise began crying.
“I’m your mama.”
The baby blinked.
Then smiled.
Elise folded over the crib rail.
Felix turned away.
I stood in the doorway.
Something inside me hurt so badly that I could not name it.
This child might share my DNA.
But I had not carried her.
I had not known she existed.
Elise had.
And someone had stolen the ending of that pregnancy from her.
Patricia lifted Lily and placed her carefully into Elise’s arms.
Elise made a sound halfway between laughter and grief.
Lily grabbed her necklace.
Elise kissed the baby’s hair again and again.
Felix stepped closer.
“Can I?”
Elise looked at him.
For a moment, I thought she would refuse.
Then she turned Lily slightly.
Felix touched one tiny hand.
The baby wrapped her fingers around his.
He started crying.
I looked away.
My phone buzzed.
Anonymous number.
I almost ignored it.
Then I opened the message.
LILY IS SAFE.
I typed:
WHO ARE YOU?
This time, the answer came.
SOMEONE WHO SHOULD HAVE TOLD YOU THE TRUTH ELEVEN YEARS AGO.
My pulse quickened.
A second message.
I WAS AT YOUR WEDDING.
Then a photograph arrived.
Our wedding reception.
Felix and me dancing.
In the background, near the doorway, stood Martin.
Harold.
Ingrid.
Sabine.
Margaret.
And one man I did not recognize.
The message followed.
YOU KNOW ME AS DAVID MERCER.
I stared.
Claire’s attorney.
Daniel’s surname.
The attorney who had verified our forged embryo-donation papers.
Another message.
BUT MERCER ISN’T MY REAL NAME.
Then:
ASK MARGARET WHO HER FIRSTBORN SON WAS.
Click here to continue reading: PART 20: Margaret’s Firstborn Son Had Been Erased From the Blake Family, and His Identity Finally Explained Who Had Been Sending Every Warning
At His Family’s Dinner Table, My Husband Said One German Sentence He Never Expected Me to Understand
Part 19 of 35
