Chapter 10 - THE OTHER WOMAN AT THE DOOR
Anne Carter arrived at the hospital with two attorneys.
She was sixty-one, elegant, composed, with dark hair cut at the jaw.
She looked nothing like Victor.
That did not comfort me.
She asked to see Hope.
I refused.
She did not argue.
“I expected that.”
“Why did you open the basement door?”
“To give Grace access.”
“You knew she was there?”
“Yes.”
“You knew I was inside?”
“Not until Sarah contacted me.”
“Why didn’t you come down?”
“Because Daniel would have recognized me.”
“Your son thinks you’re dead.”
Her face tightened.
“Victor told him that.”
The Carter family collected living people and converted them into graves.
Anne explained that she left Victor when Daniel was six.
A court granted Victor custody after Dr. Philip Carter declared her unstable.
She tried to regain access.
Victor produced recordings, medical reports, and witnesses.
The same system used against Laura and me.
Anne disappeared to survive.
Years later, Grace found her.
Together, they tracked Victor.
Sarah’s message activated their rescue plan.
“Why petition for Hope?”
“I didn’t.”
She looked toward Karen Blake.
The child-services investigator had already left.
Agent Sloan checked the filing.
Anne’s signature was forged.
The petition listed an address she had never used.
Someone wanted me to see Anne as another threat.
The false investigator had used real credentials copied from an actual employee.
The real Karen Blake was home sick.
The woman in my room belonged to Victor.
Hospital security footage showed her entering a service elevator.
She disappeared.
Anne looked at me.
“They will keep attacking your trust in every woman who comes near you.”
Victor understood family wounds.
He knew I had reasons to doubt Laura.
Grace.
Anne.
Sarah.
He turned every possible ally into a suspect.
Agent Sloan examined Anne’s background.
She had spent years collecting financial evidence against Victor.
She gave investigators access to offshore accounts.
One contained payments to Daniel beginning when he was eighteen.
Another paid Dr. Collins.
Another funded the fake child-services operation.
The newest transfer went to a company called Haven Families.
A private adoption agency.
Hope’s information had already been entered into its system.
A placement file listed her as an abandoned premature infant.
The receiving parents were unnamed.
The transfer was scheduled for forty-eight hours after hospital discharge.
Somebody inside neonatal intensive care intended to move her.
Hope was not safe even under guard.
Dr. Wells ordered all staff access reviewed.
Three nurses had credential anomalies.
One vanished during questioning.
Her locker contained forged infant bracelets.
Grace returned that night.
No warning.
She appeared beside Hope’s incubator wearing scrubs.
I nearly screamed.
“How did you get in?”
“The same way they do.”
“That is not comforting.”
She looked at Hope through the glass.
Her face softened.
It was the first unguarded expression I had seen.
“She looks like us.”
“She looks like herself.”
Grace nodded.
“You’re right.”
Anne entered behind her.
Grace’s posture tightened.
“You brought lawyers.”
“I brought evidence.”
“You always bring evidence after danger.”
Anne absorbed the accusation.
“I did not know Victor took you until you were fourteen.”
“You knew he had another child.”
“I knew Laura had twins. I believed one died.”
Grace looked toward me.
Everyone had believed her dead because Victor controlled the record.
Anne placed a drive on the table.
It contained a list of Haven Families placements.
Twenty-seven infants.
Several mothers were alive and believed their children died after premature births.
Hope was number twenty-eight.
Grace stared at the list.
“This is bigger than Northwood.”
“Yes,” Anne said.
“Who runs Haven?”
“Philip Carter.”
Daniel’s uncle.
The psychiatrist who signed my guardianship petition.
He had not been arrested.
He had attended the basement raid as a consulting physician, then disappeared before agents identified his role.
Philip was Victor’s quieter brother.
Less visible.
More patient.
Victor created control systems.
Philip legitimized them medically.
Agent Sloan issued a national alert.
Philip’s passport showed no travel.
His bank accounts were untouched.
He remained nearby.
Hope’s heart rate alarmed.
A nurse rushed in.
Dr. Wells followed.
Her oxygen level fell suddenly.
He checked the incubator.
The oxygen line had been disconnected.
Not accidentally.
Someone had loosened it from behind the wall.
A maintenance tunnel ran between neonatal rooms.
Sarah, still bandaged, recognized the access design.
The same contractor who installed Daniel’s glass enclosure renovated the hospital unit.
David’s company.
Agent Sloan led a search.
They found the tunnel empty.
At the far end was a white medical coat.
Inside the pocket, a note.
DELIVERY IS STILL SCHEDULED.
Grace read it.
Then looked toward the service exit.
“He’s inside the hospital.”
“Philip?” I asked.
“No.”
She pointed to a tiny symbol drawn beneath the message.
A circle with three vertical lines.
Victor’s mark for Subject Three.
The baby.
“He’s not trying to steal Hope later.”
May you like
Grace looked at the incubator.
“He’s taking her tonight.”
