Chapter 8 - THE NURSE WHO SAVED LILY
The board meeting ended shortly before noon.
Victor, Margaret, Sloan, and Crane were transported separately for questioning.
But Ethan’s work was not finished.
There was still one name missing.
Claire Donovan.
The nurse who had carried Lily out of the burning hospital.
Ramirez had searched the national database.
Claire Donovan officially died six years earlier in a highway accident.
Ethan no longer believed official records.
That afternoon, Marcus found a payment.
Twenty thousand dollars transferred every December to an account in Vermont.
The sender was hidden behind one of Victor’s shell companies.
The recipient used another name.
Clara Dunn.
Ethan stared at the photograph attached to a state license.
Older.
Gray hair.
But the face matched Claire Donovan’s hospital identification photo.
“She’s alive.”
Ramirez nodded.
“And somebody has been paying her.”
“Victor?”
“Possibly.”
Amelia, now stronger, listened from her hospital bed.
“No.”
Ethan looked at her.
“Why not?”
“If Victor knew where Claire was, she wouldn’t be alive.”
Marcus understood.
“Someone else was paying her to stay hidden.”
The answer arrived three hours later.
The bank transfers originated from an account established by Jonathan Blackwood.
Ethan’s dead father.
The account had been programmed to issue annual payments for twenty years.
Amelia began crying.
“He knew.”
Ethan looked at the transaction dates.
The account had been created four months before Jonathan died.
“He knew Claire was in danger.”
Ramirez arranged a video call.
Claire Donovan appeared on screen from a small farmhouse.
The moment she saw Ethan, she covered her mouth.
“You’re alive.”
Ethan almost smiled at the terrible symmetry.
“So are you.”
Claire began crying.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I should have found you.”
“You saved my daughter.”
“I also gave her to Nora.”
Claire’s voice broke.
“I thought she was safe.”
Ethan looked at Lily, who sat beside Amelia.
“You did what you could during a fire.”
Claire shook her head.
“No.”
“You need to know what happened.”
The room became still.
Claire described the night.
Smoke had filled the maternity corridor.
Sprinklers did not activate.
Emergency doors were mysteriously locked.
She found Lily inside a bassinet beside Amelia’s empty bed.
Someone had already removed Amelia.
Claire wrapped Lily in a blanket and escaped through a laundry stairwell.
Outside, she saw Victor speaking with the hospital administrator.
She heard him say, “No survivors from Room 412.”
Claire knew instantly that Lily was in danger.
She called Jonathan Blackwood’s private attorney.
“But Jonathan was already dead,” Ethan said.
“Yes.”
“But he had given the attorney instructions months earlier.”
“What instructions?”
“If anything happened to Amelia or the baby, protect the child from Victor.”
Ethan’s heart pounded.
“Who was the attorney?”
Claire hesitated.
“Thomas Weller.”
Ethan knew the name.
Thomas Weller had served the Blackwood family for thirty years.
He had retired after Jonathan’s death.
“Where is he?”
Claire looked frightened.
“I don’t know.”
“He disappeared two weeks after the fire.”
Ramirez began taking notes.
Claire continued.
“I was told to place Lily with Nora temporarily.”
“Thomas said he would return in forty-eight hours.”
“He never did.”
Ethan looked toward Nora’s empty chair in the hospital conference room.
Nora had not started as Victor’s accomplice.
She had been recruited later.
“What made Nora betray us?”
Claire looked down.
“Her son.”
Ethan frowned.
“She had a son?”
“He was nineteen.”
“He owed money.”
“Victor found out.”
Claire swallowed.
“He threatened to send him to prison.”
“Then he offered Nora enough money to make the problem disappear.”
“What happened to her son?”
Claire’s face changed.
“He disappeared anyway.”
Lily looked at Ethan.
“Nora told me she didn’t have children.”
Ethan felt another layer of Victor’s cruelty unfold.
He had blackmailed Nora.
Used her.
Then likely removed the person she had sacrificed everything to save.
Claire suddenly looked directly at Lily.
“Sweetheart?”
Lily looked at the screen.
Claire smiled through tears.
“You had the loudest cry in the whole maternity ward.”
Lily’s eyes widened slightly.
“You remember me?”
“I remember everything.”
Claire touched the screen.
“And your mother held you for fourteen minutes before they took her away.”
Amelia broke down.
She had spent seven years wondering whether those fourteen minutes had really happened or had been created by medication and grief.
Now someone else remembered them too.
Claire then said, “There’s one more thing.”
Ethan leaned forward.
“What?”
“I kept the original birth record.”
She raised an old envelope.
“And Jonathan’s attorney gave me another document.”
“What document?”
Claire opened the envelope.
“The final Blackwood trust amendment.”
Ethan stared.
May you like
Claire’s voice became steady.
“Victor never had the real one.”
