Chapter 8 - THE WRONG BABYThe man removed his police jacket.
Underneath was a dark tactical vest.
Daniel grabbed my wrist.
“Run.”
We moved toward the back exit.
Gunfire erupted.
Rebecca fired toward the doorway.
Sophie screamed.
Daniel pushed her behind a concrete wall.
I grabbed her hand.
“Stay with me.”
We escaped through a narrow tunnel beneath the boathouse.
At the end was an old maintenance road.
A black van waited.
Thomas was driving.
His shoulder was bandaged.
“Get in!”
We piled inside.
The van sped away.
I turned to Daniel.
“You said the baby isn't Grace.”
“Yes.”
“Then who is she?”
“We don't know.”
“That's not an answer.”
Daniel looked at me.
“Emily knew.”
“She disappeared because of it?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did she give the baby to Sophie?”
“Because she believed the baby was being hunted.”
“By whom?”
“Everyone.”
I stared at him.
“That makes no sense.”
Daniel took out a photograph.
It showed two newborn babies.
Identical.
Twin girls.
My hands started shaking.
“Those are…”
“Grace and another child.”
I looked closer.
One baby had a small crescent birthmark.
The other did not.
“Which one is Grace?”
“The one with the mark.”
I looked at the photograph again.
The child Sophie had brought home had the mark.
My heart sank.
“So she is Grace.”
Daniel nodded.
“Then why did you say she wasn't?”
“Because the people hunting her don't know whether she is.”
“What?”
“Someone switched the infants.”
I stared at him.
“When?”
“Five years ago.”
“Who?”
“Emily.”
I looked at Sophie.
“But Grace was supposedly five years old.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did Emily give us a newborn?”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Because Grace was frozen.”
I stared at him.
Thomas turned around from the driver's seat.
“Technically, cryopreserved.”
The words sounded insane.
Daniel continued.
“They developed a procedure to preserve embryonic and neonatal tissue.”
“They froze a baby?”
“For years.”
Sophie looked horrified.
“Why?”
“To hide her from the project.”
I held my head.
None of this was possible.
Then Daniel said something that made everything worse.
“There was another person who knew the truth.”
“Who?”
He looked at me.
“Your mother.”
I froze.
“My mother died eight years ago.”
“No.”
Daniel shook his head.
“She disappeared.”
I stared at him.
“What are you talking about?”
“She was part of the original program.”
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“She was a nurse.”
“She was also one of the scientists who designed it.”
I couldn't speak.
My childhood memories began changing.
The locked study.
The medical books.
The phone calls.
The strange people who visited at night.
Things I'd forgotten.
Daniel looked out the window.
“We need to find your mother's records.”
“Where?”
“Her old clinic.”
“It was demolished.”
“No.”
Daniel's voice was quiet.
“It wasn't.”
He pointed ahead.
We turned onto a narrow road.
A building appeared through the trees.
Abandoned.
Overgrown.
But the lights were on.
I whispered,
“That's impossible.”
Daniel looked at me.
“No.”
He said,
“That's where they kept the first children.”
The van stopped.
We got out.
The building door opened by itself.
A voice came from inside.
“Karen?”
May you like
I froze.
It was my mother's voice.
