Chapter 2 - The call Lorraine said never happened
I woke six hours later without my daughter in my arms.
That absence terrified me before I was fully conscious.
“Where is she?”
Caleb appeared beside me.
His eyes were swollen.
“She’s alive.”
Our daughter had been delivered by emergency C-section.
Premature.
NICU.
Stable for now.
I cried without making a sound.
Caleb reached for me, but I turned my face away.
He understood.
He had come home and seen another man's jacket while his pregnant wife collapsed.
And for three seconds, he had believed the jacket.
Not me.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
I closed my eyes.
“Later.”
That one word frightened him more than anger would have.
Then Detective Marissa Cole entered.
That surprised me.
So did what she carried.
My phone records.
Hospital call logs.
And a recorded conversation.
At 9:41 that morning, I had called my obstetric practice because of severe abdominal pain.
Dr. Morgan called me back.
He heard how weak I sounded and told me to call emergency services immediately.
I tried Caleb seventeen times first.
Then Lorraine.
Lorraine arrived twenty-eight minutes later.
She took my phone.
Told me she would handle everything.
Then called Harbor Regional herself.
The hospital recording captured her voice perfectly.
“My daughter-in-law’s symptoms have stopped. She panics easily during pregnancy. Please cancel the callback.”
The nurse challenged her.
Lorraine replied:
“I’m her emergency contact.”
She wasn't.
Caleb stared at the transcript.
“She could have killed them.”
Detective Cole didn't answer.
Instead she played another recording.
Lorraine calling Dr. Morgan.
“Hannah refuses an ambulance. Could you come assess her?”
I turned toward Caleb.
“I never refused.”
He looked sick.
Lorraine had simultaneously prevented the hospital from escalating my case and summoned Elias privately.
Why?
Then Detective Cole placed another photograph down.
Security footage showed Lorraine entering our townhouse at 10:17.
Dr. Morgan arrived at 10:42.
Lorraine left at 10:46.
Four minutes later.
“She left you alone with him,” Caleb said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I remembered Lorraine standing in my bedroom doorway.
Watching Elias examine me.
Then deliberately knocking our wedding photograph from the dresser.
I had assumed it was an accident.
Now I wasn't sure.
Detective Cole slid one final document toward us.
Dr. Morgan had reported something unusual before my surgery.
When he arrived at the townhouse, Lorraine told him I had already taken medication for the pain.
May you like
I hadn't.
And according to my bloodwork, something was present in my system that nobody at the hospital had prescribed.
