Chương 7
She backed into the corner of the hospital room with the stuffed dog clutched by one leg.
Mara sat on the floor several feet away. “The family is called the Ortegas. Two adults, one older daughter in college, no little children at home. They have a room ready for you.”
“No.”
“They can bring you here every day.”
“You said near.”
“I know.”
“You lied.”
Mara absorbed that without defending herself.
Nathan stood in the doorway. He had not been invited into the conversation, but Lily had looked for him the moment the placement worker arrived.
“Can she stay at my house?” he asked.
Mara did not turn. “Not tonight.”
“Why?”
“Your home is connected to the investigation. Your mother arranged access. Your staff have not completed background checks for emergency placement. You have no caregiving history, and you may be a central witness.”
“Mrs. Harris does.”
Evelyn, beside him, raised an eyebrow.
Mara finally looked over. “Mrs. Harris is welcome to apply as a temporary kin-like resource, but that cannot be completed in an hour.”
Nathan crouched near Lily.
“The Ortegas sound terrible,” he said.
Mara frowned.
Lily stared at him.
“They probably serve vegetables,” he continued. “They may have rules about television. There could be decorative pillows.”
“I hate pillows.”
“So does Mrs. Harris. She says they prevent honest sitting.”
Evelyn said, “I have never said that.”
“You’ve implied it for years.”
Lily’s grip on the stuffed dog loosened slightly.
Nathan kept his voice low. “You don’t have to like this. You don’t have to pretend it’s fair. But Blue needs you to sleep somewhere warm tonight, because tomorrow you’re coming back to see him.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
Mara began to speak.
Nathan lifted one hand. “I promise I will do everything legally possible to make sure she sees him tomorrow.”
Lily narrowed her eyes. “Too many words.”
“It means I won’t disappear.”
That answer reached her.
She looked at Evelyn. “Are you disappearing?”
“No.”
“Her?”
Lily pointed at Mara.
Mara said, “Not yet.”
The girl considered them one by one, then nodded with the exhausted resignation of someone accepting terms from unreliable adults.
The Ortega home was twenty minutes away in Stamford. Nathan followed the placement vehicle but did not enter the house. Dana had warned him that arriving at a foster home with security staff and a convoy would be interpreted as pressure, regardless of intent.
He came alone in an ordinary black sedan driven by no one but himself. He parked across the street and watched Lily step out beneath Mara’s umbrella.
The foster mother, Sofia Ortega, was a broad-shouldered woman in purple nursing scrubs. She knelt on the wet walkway and said something that made Lily look toward the house. A lamp glowed in the upstairs window. On the porch sat a pair of muddy gardening clogs and a ceramic frog missing one eye.
Lily entered after three full minutes.
Nathan remained until the porch light went out.
At home, the marble floor had been cleaned. The open doorway looked exactly as it had before the children arrived. This disturbed him more than the mud had.
Evelyn left the cream blanket Lily had worn folded on the sitting-room chair.
Nathan stood over it.
“She will need clothes,” he said.
“Mrs. Ortega has clothes.”
“She won’t know what Lily likes.”
“Neither do you.”
He picked up the blanket and folded it again, though it was already straight.
“What do seven-year-old girls wear?”
“Clothing, generally.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Do not send a truck of dresses to that house.”
“I wasn’t going to send dresses.”
“You were going to have someone purchase an entire childhood by breakfast.”
Nathan set the blanket down. “Her shoes were held together with tape.”
“Yes.”
“I can buy shoes.”
“Yes.”
“Then why shouldn’t I?”
“Because the first thing that girl needs from you may not be a demonstration that you can replace everything.”
He turned toward the fireplace.
Evelyn moved to the bar and poured water into a glass. She drank half, then looked at him over the rim.
“You have not opened Claire’s letter.”
“It’s evidence.”
“Convenient.”
“Margaret may have manipulated it.”
“Also convenient.”
Nathan’s voice hardened. “You think I’m afraid of a letter?”
“I watched you sleep on a hospital floor for nine nights because going home meant admitting Claire would not. I think you are afraid of many reasonable things.”
He walked out before she could say more.
The DNA results came two days later.
Nathan Carter was the newborn’s biological father with the highest confidence the laboratory reported. Claire Carter, based on preserved genetic material still legally stored at another facility, was identified as the biological mother.
Nathan read the report in Dana Whitaker’s office.
Outside her window, a delivery driver argued with a parking enforcement officer. Someone in the next suite microwaved fish. The ordinary smells and noises felt insulting.
Dana removed her glasses. “This answers biology.”
“What doesn’t it answer?”
“Parentage. Custody. Consent. Potential crimes. The rights of Elena Bell, depending on what she agreed to and whether any agreement was lawful. The child’s medical history. Whether other embryos were retained. Whether there are other children.”
Nathan looked up.
Dana held his gaze.
“No,” he said.
“I’m telling you the questions that now exist.”
“How many embryos were there?”
“According to the documents, four viable embryos remained when the destruction authorization was entered.”
“One became this child.”
“If the records are accurate.”
“And the other three?”
“Unaccounted for.”
His phone buzzed. Mara.
Elena had been found.
Dr. Voss’s SUV was located outside a motel near the Connecticut–New York line. A clerk had called police after seeing a woman collapse near the ice machine. Voss was arrested while attempting to leave through a rear service door.
May you like
Elena was alive.
Nathan saw her for the first time through the narrow window of an intensive care room. She was thirty-two, though illness made her look older. Her dark hair had been cut unevenly near one side of her neck where medical tape held a line. She had suffered severe blood loss, infection, and exposure. Voss had apparently given her antibiotics without proper monitoring and moved her when her condition worsened.
