Chapter 7 - THE FIRST SWITCH
Luke finally confessed.
Not because he felt guilty.
Because Rebecca had disappeared and he realized she could blame everything on him.
Detective Bennett recorded the interview.
I watched from another room.
Luke looked smaller than I remembered.
“The first switch wasn’t supposed to hurt anyone.”
Bennett stared at him.
“You exchanged two newborns.”
“I didn’t physically do it.”
“You paid people who did.”
Luke lowered his eyes.
“Why the Grant baby?”
“Money.”
There it was.
No excuse.
No tragic misunderstanding.
Money.
Daniel Grant’s family trust contained a clause allowing funds to follow the biological heir.
Luke and Rebecca believed they could later expose the switch and negotiate a private settlement.
But something changed.
Rachel and Daniel moved.
The plan became too risky.
So Luke stayed silent.
He raised Eli.
And apparently learned to love him.
That was the part I couldn’t understand.
“How could he love Eli and do this again?”
Bennett looked at me.
“People can love someone and still be selfish enough to destroy them.”
Luke’s second plan was more desperate.
His business was collapsing.
He owed nearly nine hundred thousand dollars.
Rebecca contacted him.
She offered a solution.
Two newborns.
Two financial policies.
One manipulated discharge record.
One staged tragedy.
Luke claimed he didn’t know anyone intended to harm June.
I didn’t believe him.
Neither did Bennett.
Then Luke gave them something useful.
A location.
Rebecca and Keller had used an abandoned medical office outside the city.
Police raided it that night.
They found bassinets.
Blank identification bands.
Hospital uniforms.
Birth records.
Dozens of photographs.
Some dated back fifteen years.
This wasn’t two switches.
It was a network.
Families had been manipulated for years.
Some babies had been moved between households.
Others had been targeted for fraudulent adoptions.
A few cases involved inheritance schemes.
The investigation expanded overnight.
Federal agents joined.
Dr. Keller became the primary target.
Rebecca remained missing.
Then police found a wall covered with photographs.
Mine was there.
Hannah’s was there.
Rachel’s was there.
Eli’s was there.
And beneath Eli’s picture was a date.
Tomorrow.
Bennett called me immediately.
“Claire, we’re moving you.”
“Why?”
“Because whatever they planned isn’t over.”
I looked at Eli.
“What does the date mean?”
“We don’t know.”
Then Camille rushed into the room.
Her face was white.
“Where’s Eli?”
My heart stopped.
“He was with the counselor.”
Camille shook her head.
“The counselor says his father signed him out.”
“That’s impossible.”
Luke was in custody.
Then Bennett understood.
“Not Luke.”
She grabbed her radio.
Someone had signed Eli out using Daniel Grant’s name.
Rachel’s husband.
But Daniel was thirty miles away.
I ran into the hallway despite the pain tearing through my incision.
“ELI!”
No answer.
At the end of the corridor, an elevator door closed.
For half a second, I saw a blond woman inside.
May you like
Rebecca.
And beside her stood my son.
