Chapter 2 - The Death Certificate
Everett locked the front door and carried Noah away from the staircase.
My goal was to keep him from charging upstairs and getting us both killed.
He handed Noah back to me, then opened the envelope.
Inside was not a release order.
It was a certified neonatal death certificate.
Baby Brooks.
Male.
Time of death: 2:18 a.m.
Cause: respiratory collapse.
The time listed was four minutes before Noah’s first recorded cry.
Everett read it twice.
“This is forged.”
“The hospital filed it.”
His jaw tightened.
“Why?”
“So no one would search for him after they transferred him.”
“Transferred where?”
I looked toward the ceiling.
“To a private nursery.”
Everett took out his phone.
“No police until I know who’s inside.”
That was the first mistake he made.
He still believed information gave him control.
He had spent twelve years as CEO of Brooks Meridian, building a company through hostile acquisitions and calculated risk. He trusted documents, leverage, and timing.
But this was not a boardroom.
This was his mother.
The nursery camera remained black.
Everett opened the home security app.
Every upstairs sensor had been disabled using the master administrator code.
Only three people had that code.
Everett.
Me.
Eleanor.
He searched the entry log.
At 8:42 p.m., a key had opened the side door.
Credential: MAREN BROOKS.
I had been downstairs feeding Noah.
Someone had copied my digital key.
Everett went to the kitchen and returned with a heavy brass fireplace poker.
I grabbed his sleeve.
“You don’t know if she’s alone.”
He looked at me.
“How many?”
“At least two.”
That changed his expression.
I told him what happened after the birth.
Dr. Price said Noah needed observation.
Eleanor arrived while I was sedated.
She signed documents as Everett’s authorized representative.
When I woke, the hospital told me my baby had died.
But I heard Noah crying through the wall.
I followed the sound to a locked nursery and found him wearing another infant’s bracelet.
Everett stared at the death certificate.
“My mother signed this?”
“She witnessed it.”
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Then footsteps crossed the landing.
Slow.
Unhurried.
Whoever was there knew we were below.
Everett opened the hospital attachment hidden behind the certificate.
It was a transfer authorization.
Destination: Rosehaven Infant Recovery Center.
The receiving parent line was sealed.
But one line remained visible.
Emergency placement approved by Brooks Family Trust.
Everett went still.
His family trust had no medical function.
At least, that was what he believed.
He logged into the trust’s private portal.
The Rosehaven payment appeared instantly.
Seven million dollars.
Date: three months before Noah’s birth.
Purpose: continuity placement.
Continuity of what?
Then he found six earlier payments.
Each connected to a newborn declared dead at the same hospital.
Every child had been born to a woman married to a Brooks Meridian executive.
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I thought Noah had been targeted because of Everett—but the payment history showed he was the seventh child in a corporate bloodline program.
The next document named the woman Eleanor intended to register as Noah’s legal mother.
