Chapter 5 - The Doctor's SecretDr. Matthew Bennett had delivered more than three hundred babies in private New York clinics.
He had a spotless professional record, wealthy clients, photographs with politicians, and a reputation for discretion that made him especially popular among families who valued privacy.
He was also missing.
His townhouse stood empty when Elias's men arrived. The security system had been disabled, his personal computer had been removed, and the neighboring cameras had been redirected toward the street.
Someone had prepared his disappearance carefully.
Someone with money.
Someone with influence.
Someone like Nathan Cross.
I sat at the safehouse dining table with Clara asleep against my chest while Elias studied the photograph of Grace.
“Why would a doctor help my husband steal our daughter?” I asked.
“Money is the simplest answer.”
“And the complicated one?”
Elias turned a page in the file Luca had assembled.
“Three weeks ago, Bennett transferred nearly eight hundred thousand dollars to a company owned by Nathan's mother. Two days later, he changed his office schedule and resigned from the hospital board.”
“Eight hundred thousand?”
“That's just what we can see.”
My fingers tightened around Clara's blanket.
“Nathan said one of the girls wasn't his.”
Elias looked up.
“Did he ever accuse you of cheating?”
“No. Not before the pregnancy. But after the ultrasound showed twins, he began asking strange questions.”
“Such as?”
“He asked whether the clinic had used his medical records. He demanded copies of every test result. Once, he accused me of hiding something because I asked why he wasn't coming to my appointments.”
Elias leaned forward.
“Did Nathan undergo fertility treatment?”
I hesitated.
“Yes. Years ago. He said he had a medical condition and needed help conceiving. He told me he was embarrassed, so I didn't ask questions.”
“Did he tell you what the condition was?”
“No.”
Elias exchanged a look with Luca.
“What?”
“We found payments from Nathan's company to a fertility specialist,” Luca said. “The payments continued until six months ago.”
I stared at him.
“Why would he need a fertility specialist if I was already pregnant?”
“That's what we're trying to determine.”
The answer made no sense, and every possible explanation seemed worse than the last.
Then Luca placed another photograph on the table.
It showed Nathan entering a medical building with a woman whose face I recognized immediately.
His mother.
“That's Eleanor Cross,” I whispered.
“She visited Bennett the night before you gave birth,” Luca said. “She also purchased a private plane ticket under a false name.”
“To where?”
“Geneva.”
“Did she leave?”
“No.”
He slid another image toward me.
A photograph of Eleanor standing outside a warehouse on the Hudson.
The location was only two blocks from the overpass where Elias had found me.
My skin prickled.
“She was there.”
“We believe she watched the operation,” Elias said. “We don't yet know whether she expected you to survive.”
I looked down at Clara.
“How can people do this to babies?”
Elias didn't offer a comforting lie.
“People who believe children are possessions can justify almost anything.”
My phone vibrated.
I nearly dropped it.
Elias had given me a secure device, programmed to receive messages from his staff. One notification appeared on the screen.
Unknown number.
No text.
Just a video file.
I opened it.
Grace lay in a white bassinet beneath a soft lamp. She looked unharmed, her small chest rising and falling.
A hand entered the frame and placed a silver bracelet beside her head.
Then a man's voice spoke.
“Your husband wants you to understand something, Ava.”
The camera moved closer to Grace.
“He can take one daughter today. He can take the other tomorrow. But if you want both of them alive, you'll come to him alone.”
The video ended.
A second message appeared.
MIDNIGHT. PIER 19. BRING THE ORIGINAL LEDGER. NO VANCE.
I read it twice.
“I don't have a ledger.”
Elias reached for the phone.
His eyes moved across the message.
Then he looked at the old recording on the table.
“The original ledger is probably why Nathan married you in the first place.”
I stared at him.
“That makes no sense. I had nothing when I met him.”
“Maybe you didn't know you had it.”
He picked up the phone again, replayed the final seconds of the old recording, and enlarged the audio waveform.
A faint sound emerged beneath Eleanor Cross's voice.
Not another speaker.
A door opening.
And Nathan saying a sentence so quietly that neither of us had noticed it before.
“Check Ava's father's things. She'll never suspect what he left her.”
My blood turned cold.
My father had been dead for twelve years.
I'd inherited almost nothing from him.
May you like
Except one small metal box I'd never been able to open.
And it was still buried beneath the floorboards of the apartment Nathan had just destroyed.
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