Chapter 2 - The Doctor’s Name
“Pull over,” Elias said.
He stopped beneath a closed pharmacy sign, locked the doors, and took the document from Isabella with both hands.
“Dr. Lena Ortiz,” he read.
“She delivered my son.”
Elias looked up. Isabella’s first pregnancy had ended three years ago. Their boy had lived for eleven hours. She had spoken his name every day afterward, though Dante never did.
“Lena signed the witness line eighteen months ago,” Isabella said. “According to this, she watched me authorize a transfer while I was at a foundation meeting in Boston.”
“Can you prove where you were?”
“I spoke onstage. There’s video.”
“That helps.” Elias studied the page. “Why would a doctor witness a foundation transfer?”
“That’s what I asked Lena.”
“You went to her?”
“Yesterday.”
“And?”
“She said she’d never seen this form. Then she asked whether I still had the bracelet from the hospital.”
Elias lowered the paper.
“What bracelet?”
“The one they put on our son.”
Isabella pulled a small velvet pouch from her purse. Inside was a faded blue hospital band, too small to fit around her thumb. She had kept it in her bedside drawer since the day she came home without him.
“Lena told me to bring it to her office tomorrow morning,” she said.
“Did she explain why?”
“No. Her nurse came in, and she said she couldn’t talk there.”
Elias rubbed a hand over his face. “You should have told me about this before the gala.”
“I wanted Dante to see me leave. I wanted witnesses.”
“Now he knows you found something.”
“He doesn’t know what.”
Elias gave her a look.
“He heard you say you had everything you need.”
“He thinks I mean Natalia.”
“Dante’s a lot of things, Isabella. Stupid isn’t one of them.”
Her phone lit up. Dante.
She let it ring.
A message followed.
Where are you? Come home. We need to discuss what you did.
Isabella typed back with one hand.
I’ll contact you through my attorney.
His reply arrived before she could put the phone away.
Don’t involve strangers in our family.
Elias read it over her shoulder. “He already suspects.”
Isabella looked at the hospital bracelet. She could still remember how it had felt to slide one finger beneath it while her son lay in the neonatal unit.
“Drive to the apartment,” she said.
Elias had rented a furnished place under his company’s name. Isabella had stocked it with maternity clothes, medications, and a crib over the past month. Every visit had felt disloyal until she found the transfer document. After that, leaving had become the only decision she could live with.
At the apartment, she called Dr. Ortiz.
The call went straight to voicemail.
She tried again. So did Elias.
At 1:14 a.m., Lena called back. Her voice was thin and breathless.
“Isabella, don’t come to my office.”
“Why?”
“Someone went through my records.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Listen carefully. The bracelet has a number under the clasp. Read it.”
Isabella lifted the tiny band toward the lamp.
“Lena?”
“Read it.”
“Four-seven-one-six-two.”
There was a long pause.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Lena made a sound Isabella couldn’t place.
“What does it mean?” Isabella asked.
“The hospital file says your son’s number was four-seven-one-six-three.”
Isabella stared at the bracelet.
“That could be a mistake.”
“I thought so, too,” Lena whispered. “Then I found the discharge record for four-seven-one-six-two.”
“Who was discharged?”
A car door slammed at Lena’s end of the call.
“Lena?”
“Call the county records office. Ask for the sealed transfer under your maiden name.”
“What transfer?”
Lena’s breath caught.
The line went dead.
Isabella called back. Once. Twice.
Then a photograph arrived from an unknown number.
May you like
It showed Dr. Ortiz’s office door standing open.
On the floor outside lay her white coat.
