Chapter 12 - THE CHILD WHO WASN’T BURIED
Daniel denied that our first child died.
His mother told him the baby had been lost during the crash.
He believed her.
Hospital records showed I arrived eight weeks pregnant.
The discharge summary listed miscarriage.
No pathology report.
No fetal remains.
No signed consent.
Dr. Collins reviewed the old ultrasound images.
The pregnancy had been viable when I entered the hospital.
Something happened during the missing forty-eight hours.
Federal agents searched St. Augustine Research Center.
The building appeared abandoned.
Below it, they found frozen embryos, birth records, and genetic profiles.
One file carried my name.
Pregnancy One.
Outcome: Live birth.
Male.
Transfer authorized.
I had delivered a child and forgotten it.
My knees weakened.
“How old would he be?”
Nathan calculated.
“Ten.”
Lily stood beside me.
She looked toward the rescued children’s files.
One of the boys from Room One was ten.
His name in the facility was Patient Two.
His real identity remained unknown.
DNA testing returned the next morning.
Daniel and I were his biological parents.
His name was Noah.
The boy had lived beneath the workshop for four years.
Before that, records placed him at St. Augustine.
He remembered Dr. Cross.
He remembered Jason.
He did not remember me.
I sat across from him in the family unit.
He studied my face.
“They said my mother left.”
“I didn’t.”
“They all say that.”
I could not ask him to trust me.
Trust had been used against him too many times.
So I told him the truth.
“I was hurt. They took my memory. I did not know you existed.”
He looked toward Daniel standing in the doorway.
“Is he my father?”
“Yes.”
“Did he know?”
“No.”
Noah nodded slowly.
“Then nobody came because nobody knew.”
The sentence destroyed me.
I reached toward him and stopped before touching him.
“You choose what happens next.”
He looked at my pregnant stomach.
“Is that my sister?”
“Yes.”
“Will they take her?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
I did not.
That was the honest answer.
“Because this time I know they are coming.”
He stared at me for several seconds.
Then he moved one chair closer.
Not an embrace.
Not forgiveness.
A beginning.
Investigators prepared charges against Dr. Cross.
But she remained missing.
Her final transmission originated from a mobile medical unit traveling west.
Nathan found a list of scheduled targets.
Pregnant women.
Maternity clinics.
Domestic violence shelters.
My name appeared at the top.
Beside it were two instructions.
RECOVER FETUS.
TERMINATE MATERNAL MEMORY.
The operation was not over.
Dr. Cross planned to take my baby without killing me.
She wanted me alive.
May you like
Empty.
And unable to remember losing another child.
