Chương 10
His supervisor told him the baby was being transferred for imaging.
Pryce later learned no imaging transfer had been scheduled.
He raised the issue again.
The next morning, he was told the child had been located in the nursery and that two identification numbers had been accidentally created for one infant.
“Why didn’t you go to police?” Claire asked when she was eventually allowed to speak with him by video.
Pryce looked older than his photograph.
“I had three kids and a mortgage.”
Claire said nothing.
He continued.
“The administrator told me if I accused a nurse of kidnapping based on an electronic malfunction, I’d be fired and probably sued.”
“So you stopped.”
“Yes.”
Claire’s anger rose.
Then she remembered Daniel.
Fear did not become noble because it wore a uniform.
“What did the nurse look like?”
“I couldn’t swear to it now.”
“Was it Rebecca Sloan?”
Pryce looked down.
“I think so.”
“That isn’t enough.”
“No.”
“Did you see the baby?”
“Only the bassinet.”
“Did you see anyone take it outside?”
“No.”
“Then what do you actually know?”
Pryce met her eyes.
“I know they told me there was only one Bennett infant.”
He paused.
“And I know I saw two bassinets with that name earlier that shift.”
Claire did not sleep that night.
At three in the morning she stood in Noah’s doorway.
His room was messy in the ordinary way she used to complain about.
One sock on the lamp base.
A science book under the pillow.
The chess clock Daniel had given him on the desk.
Claire walked to the bed and sat beside him.
Noah opened his eyes.
“Mom?”
“Go back to sleep.”
“You’re staring.”
“Sorry.”
He shifted.
“Are you checking if I’m still here?”
Claire froze.
Noah moved over.
She lay beside him.
“Yes.”
He put one hand on her sleeve.
“I’m still here.”
The tears came quietly.
Noah closed his eyes again.
After a while he said, almost asleep, “Eli is too.”
The hardest part was that finding Eli did not return him.
It introduced him.
Claire had imagined, against her own better judgment, that biology would create some immediate invisible familiarity.
It did not.
Eli disliked most of her cooking.
He refused to call her Mom.
He disliked Daniel even more.
He liked Noah but became furious when people compared them.
He hated new clothes because he thought accepting them meant his old clothes were shameful.
When Claire bought him six shirts without asking, he left all six folded on the chair at the residence.
“You could just say thank you,” Noah told him during one visit.
Eli’s face hardened.
“For what?”
“They’re shirts.”
“I have shirts.”
“Those have holes.”
“So?”
Noah looked at Claire.
She stayed silent.
Eli said, “You think because yours don’t have holes, mine are bad?”
Noah flushed.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You were thinking it.”
“You don’t know what I think.”
“You think I’m poor.”
“You are poor.”
The room went dead quiet.
Noah’s eyes widened.
Claire stood.
“Noah.”
“What? He is.”
Eli punched him.
Not hard enough to injure him badly.
Hard enough to split his lip.
Noah tackled him.
Jo and Daniel pulled them apart.
Eli screamed, “I’m not your charity!”
Noah shouted back with blood on his chin, “I didn’t ask you to be my brother!”
Claire felt the words strike both boys.
Noah did too.
His anger vanished.
Eli stopped struggling.
Daniel let go of him slowly.
Nobody spoke.
Then Eli walked into the bathroom and locked the door.
Noah sat on the floor.
Claire handed him a tissue.
He pushed it away.
“I didn’t mean it.”
“I know.”
“He hit me.”
“I know.”
“I hate him.”
“I know.”
“I don’t.”
“I know.”
Noah began crying.
Not dramatically.
He bent forward and covered his face.
Claire sat beside him.
Daniel stood near the bathroom door.
After several minutes, Eli opened it.
His eyes were dry.
He looked at Noah.
Noah looked back.
Eli said, “You called me poor.”
Noah wiped his mouth.
“You punched me.”
“You deserved it.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Eli glanced at Jo.
Jo said, “He didn’t.”
Eli looked annoyed.
Noah said, “I shouldn’t have said I didn’t ask for you.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
Eli shoved his hands into his pockets.
“I didn’t ask for you either.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
They stood in silence.
Then Noah held out the tissue Claire had given him.
Eli stared at it.
“What?”
“Your knuckle’s bleeding.”
Eli looked down.
He took the tissue.
It was not reconciliation.
It was enough for that afternoon.
The investigation eventually established the most likely chain of events.
Rebecca Sloan had removed Baby B from the neonatal unit during a window created by a malfunctioning security door and a staffing shortage.
She had access.
She had falsified a transfer notation.
She had used a service corridor that bypassed the main lobby.
A former coworker remembered Rebecca returning to work briefly after her “family emergency” to clear her locker and claiming she was moving to care for an ill sister.
There was no sister.
Rebecca became Rachel Mercer within months.
What nobody could establish with certainty was whether she had planned the abduction before Claire gave birth or acted impulsively.
There were no surviving messages.
No diary.
No confession.
Rachel had taken that answer with her.
Claire hated that.
Daniel did not.
“Maybe we don’t need to know why,” he said one evening.
They were sitting on the kitchen floor because a cabinet hinge had broken and Daniel had decided at ten at night that he could fix it.
He could not.
Claire held the flashlight while he swore quietly at a screw.
“I need to know.”
“You want to know.”
“Yes.”
“That’s different.”
She pointed the flashlight directly into his eyes.
He flinched.
“Do you want help or not?”
“Not like that.”
She lowered the beam.
Daniel tightened the hinge.
It immediately slipped.
Claire laughed.
He sat back.
“This cabinet is morally opposed to me.”
“You deserve it.”
May you like
“Probably.”
She looked at him.
