Chapter 2 - The Child Behind the Door
Police opened the doors.
There was no hidden laboratory.
No secret nursery built into mansion.
The crying came from the adjoining library.
Inside stood a portable bassinet.
A newborn girl lay inside.
Alive.
Healthy-looking.
Wrapped in hospital blanket.
Beside her sat a terrified twenty-nine-year-old woman named Sarah Nolan.
Ethan had never seen her.
Sarah raised both hands when officers entered.
“Please don't take her back there.”
“Back where?” an officer asked.
Sarah looked toward Eleanor.
“St. Catherine Reproductive Center.”
Ethan felt the hallway tilt beneath him.
St. Catherine was where he and Claire had undergone fertility treatment three years earlier.
Claire’s current pregnancy had resulted from an embryo stored there.
Ethan demanded Sarah explain who infant was.
She refused until attorney arrived.
One fact was established quickly.
Sarah had delivered baby four days earlier.
She was the woman who had given birth.
But when an officer asked whether she was biological mother, Sarah answered:
“I don't know.”
Ethan stared.
“How can you not know?”
“Because I was a gestational carrier.”
Silence.
Claire began crying from stretcher.
Ethan turned toward her.
“You knew?”
Claire whispered:
“Since yesterday.”
Ethan looked as if she had struck him.
“You knew there was a surrogate carrying a baby connected to us?”
“I knew there was a baby.”
“Connected how?”
“I didn't know yet.”
Eleanor interrupted.
“Claire needed hospital, Ethan.”
He rounded on her.
“And you decided to force medicine down her throat?”
“The fetus has tachycardia.”
The paramedic confirmed Claire’s fetal heart rate had been elevated.
Eleanor claimed medication was prescribed by maternal-fetal specialist to treat the unborn child through Claire’s bloodstream.
That was medically possible.
But forcing liquid into semiconscious person unable to swallow was dangerous.
The paramedic said so plainly.
Eleanor did not argue.
“I panicked.”
Ethan looked at overturned wheelchair.
“And that?”
“I shoved Anna. Anna hit the chair.”
Anna shook her head.
“I grabbed her because she was forcing Claire to swallow.”
No one intended wheelchair to race down hallway.
But the chain began with Eleanor’s force.
That responsibility remained.
Then Ethan looked at vial.
“Why does it say Baby A?”
Eleanor hesitated.
“Clinic labeling.”
“What clinic?”
“St. Catherine.”
“And newborn behind door?”
Sarah spoke from library.
“My discharge packet says Baby B.”
Ethan turned.
Sarah produced folded paperwork.
Temporary case designation:
SC-4471-B.
Infant female.
Sarah Nolan, gestational carrier.
Intended-parent field:
RESTRICTED.
Ethan’s mouth went dry.
Claire’s prenatal medication packet carried:
SC-4471-A.
Same case number.
Baby A.
Baby B.
One unborn.
One already born.
Ethan whispered:
“Who are the parents?”
Sarah looked toward Claire.
“I was told the embryos came from same family.”
Claire closed her eyes.
Then Ethan understood why she had said:
Don’t let her take the baby.
He looked at Eleanor.
“What did you know?”
May you like
Eleanor whispered:
“Enough to know one of these pregnancies should never have existed.”
