Chapter 2 - THE FIRST CAROLINE
The police found Luke in the garage trying to leave through the service door.
They arrested him before he reached the car.
Paramedics lifted me onto a stretcher.
I kept one hand over my belly and the other around the leather folder.
The stranger disappeared before anyone asked his name.
At the hospital, doctors treated the burns and monitored my son.
He was alive.
His heartbeat was fast but steady.
Dr. Evelyn Hart entered the room after midnight.
She had aged since I last saw her, but I recognized the calm voice.
She told me the first Caroline Brooks had been Luke’s wife seven years earlier.
Same first name.
Same age when they married.
Same fertility clinic.
Same pattern of pregnancy losses.
Officially, she died in a kitchen accident.
Her body was cremated before an independent examination.
Luke collected a life-insurance payment and transferred control of her inherited shares into his mother’s company.
But the trust required a living male child to become permanent.
Every son Caroline carried would have inherited before Luke.
Every pregnancy ended after unexplained injuries.
Then Luke found me.
Another Caroline.
Another woman connected to the same family bloodline.
Dr. Hart opened a DNA report.
The first Caroline had been my half sister.
I had never known she existed.
Our father maintained two families in different states.
Luke had not chosen me by coincidence.
He chose me because I carried the same inheritance marker.
Then Dr. Hart gave me one more result.
My unborn son was not only an heir.
He was the first confirmed child to survive past thirty-two weeks.
Someone had secretly changed my prenatal medication and hidden protective test results from Luke.
I asked who.
Dr. Hart looked toward the empty doorway.
“The man who broke down your door.”
She knew his identity.
But before she could tell me, the hospital power flickered.
A nurse rushed in.
Luke had escaped police custody during transport.
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And the security camera outside my room had just gone dark.
Read Chapter 3 to learn who helped Luke escape and why he came back for the folder.
