Chapter 3 - THE FUNERAL DATE
At the hospital, Dr. Natalie Reed examined me in a secured maternity room.
I was dehydrated, malnourished, and dangerously anemic. My daughter’s growth had slowed, but her heart remained strong enough to give us time.
Rachel sat outside with Detective Ortiz.
Jason had told her he was selling the truck because he needed money for my funeral.
He claimed I had terminal cancer.
He wanted Rachel to see an empty farmhouse, sign a vehicle-transfer form, and later confirm that he appeared to be a grieving husband.
The form contained hidden language stating she had seen me “in declining medical condition.”
Rachel had nearly signed it.
The cloth note changed everything.
Ortiz searched the shed.
Beneath loose floorboards, officers found prenatal vitamins, hospital bracelets, and identification cards belonging to three women.
Sarah Collins.
Megan Reed.
Claire Donovan.
All had been reported missing over the previous six years.
Jason had dated each of them.
Each disappearance followed a pregnancy.
My stomach turned.
“Did they find bodies?”
“No.”
Ortiz did not soften the answer.
“Not yet.”
Dr. Reed entered holding my blood results.
Someone had given me low doses of a medication that caused confusion and memory gaps.
Jason had mixed it into the little water he allowed me.
That explained why hours disappeared.
Why I sometimes woke without remembering him opening the hatch.
Why I could not recall being moved from the house to the shed.
Then Dr. Reed asked a question that changed the direction of the case.
“Emily, is this your first pregnancy?”
“Yes.”
She studied my face.
“Your scans show evidence of a prior late-term delivery.”
I stared at her.
“That’s impossible.”
She turned the monitor toward me.
Scar tissue.
Surgical changes.
A delivery I did not remember.
Ortiz searched my older medical history.
A missing four-month period appeared when I was twenty-four. My family believed I attended a wellness retreat after a breakdown.
The retreat belonged to Jason’s aunt, Dr. Evelyn Carter.
Jason had known me before our relationship.
My first pregnancy had occurred there.
A girl had been born.
The record listed her as deceased.
No death certificate existed.
A photograph recovered from the shed showed Jason’s mother, Margaret, holding a toddler with my eyes.
On the back was written:
LILY — AGE FOUR.
My daughter was alive.
May you like
Jason had not locked me in the starvation box only to punish me.
He was hiding me until the second child was born.
