Chapter 8 - THE SAFE UNDER THE FLOOR
Daniel tore up the nursery rug.
Nothing.
He knocked along the floorboards.
Solid.
Then Rosa pointed toward the rocking chair.
“That one moves.”
They dragged it aside.
One floorboard had a hairline gap.
Luis pried it up.
Beneath it sat a steel safe.
Four digits.
Daniel tried Ethan’s birthday.
Wrong.
Claire’s birthday.
Wrong.
Evelyn’s.
Wrong.
Rosa stood behind him.
“Try the day I gave birth.”
Daniel looked at her.
“What date?”
“March 14.”
Click.
The safe opened.
No one spoke.
Inside were folders.
Dozens.
Each marked with a woman’s name.
Rosa Alvarez.
Megan Porter.
Sasha Bell.
Camille Reed.
Daniel stopped.
“Reed?”
Luis looked over his shoulder.
“Doctor’s wife?”
Daniel opened it.
Inside were medical records, a birth certificate, and a photograph.
A young woman holding a newborn.
On the back someone had written:
PLACEMENT COMPLETED — $180,000.
Daniel’s stomach turned.
“This isn’t adoption.”
Rosa grabbed her folder.
Her hands shook violently.
Inside was her son’s footprint card.
Baby Boy Alvarez.
Born alive.
Healthy.
Transferred at 2:42 a.m.
Mother sedated.
Rosa let out a broken cry.
Then Daniel found another page.
Recipient family:
WHITMORE.
Payment received:
$250,000.
Daniel looked at Claire.
She had followed them back into the room.
“You paid for him.”
Claire stared at the page.
“No.”
“Your name is here.”
“My mother handled the money.”
“Two hundred fifty thousand dollars.”
“I never saw that paper.”
Daniel shoved it toward her.
“You expect me to believe that?”
Claire’s face crumpled.
“I thought it was legal.”
“You thought buying a newborn from a sedated woman was legal?”
“I thought she signed!”
Rosa screamed:
“I SIGNED NOTHING!”
Ethan startled.
Claire covered her mouth.
Rosa’s anger turned deadly quiet.
“You held my baby while I thought he was dead.”
Claire cried.
“I was grieving too.”
Rosa laughed bitterly.
“You had a choice.”
Daniel kept searching.
At the bottom of the safe was a black ledger.
Names.
Dates.
Dollar amounts.
Twenty-three babies.
Twenty-three mothers.
Some entries had red marks.
“What does this mean?” Luis asked.
Daniel flipped pages.
Then he found one name he knew.
Emily Hart.
His former assistant.
She had disappeared three years earlier after saying she was pregnant.
Daniel had assumed she moved away.
Next to her name:
COMPLICATION — CLOSED.
He felt cold.
“Closed?”
Rosa whispered, “What does that mean?”
A car engine roared outside.
Luis looked toward the window.
“Someone’s at the gate.”
His radio crackled.
“Luis, we’ve got a breach.”
Then came shouting.
A second later—
Glass exploded inward.
May you like
Daniel threw himself over Rosa and Ethan.
And from downstairs came the sound of men entering the house.
