“You need to prepare yourself for the possibility that the people who did this believed they were protecting the Bellamy name.”
I looked through the study window toward the dark lawn, where my mother had hosted garden parties beneath strings of lights and told donors that family was the only legacy worth defending.
“Priya,” I said, “I’m starting to think the Bellamy name is the reason this happened.”
I slept less than an hour.
At dawn, I left the house before Claire woke, the bags from the store loaded into my car. I drove first to Hollow Creek and left them with Mr. Hanley, the motel owner, who had the build of a retired football coach and the suspicious eyes of a man who had seen too much trouble arrive smiling.
“She’ll get these,” he said.
“Thank you.”
He eyed me. “You the reason she cries when she thinks nobody hears?”
The question landed without mercy.
“One of them,” I said.
Mr. Hanley nodded as if honesty, however late, counted for something small. “Then be less of one today.”
At nine, I parked across from the clinic in Columbia.
Megan arrived five minutes later in an old blue sedan with rust near the wheel well. She took both babies inside without looking my way. I stayed where I was, hands gripping the steering wheel, watching parents come and go with strollers, diaper bags, sleepy toddlers, and lives that had not been split by secrets.
At 9:42, Megan stepped out and looked across the street.
Then she lifted one hand.
I crossed carefully, as though any sudden movement might undo the invitation.
Inside, the clinic smelled of hand sanitizer and baby lotion. A nurse at the desk looked from Megan to me and back again with professional caution.
“This is Rowan,” Megan said. “Their father.”
Their father.
Two words. A gift I had not earned.
The pediatrician, Dr. Kline, was a woman in her fifties with silver-threaded hair and kind, direct eyes. She did not seem impressed by my name, which immediately made me trust her.
“Noah and Ellis are gaining well,” she said after allowing me to stand awkwardly by the exam table while Megan handled everything with practiced competence. “Their lungs sound good. I’d like to see a little more weight on Ellis, but I’m not alarmed.”
I watched Megan undress Noah with gentle efficiency.
“Can I help?” I asked.
She glanced at me. “Hold this.”
She handed me a tiny sock.
It was absurd how carefully I held it.
Dr. Kline noticed, but did not smile.
When the boys were dressed again, Megan asked the nurse to take them for a weight recheck. The nurse hesitated, but Megan nodded. Once the door closed, Dr. Kline’s expression changed.
“I wondered when you would come,” she said to me.
My pulse sharpened. “You know who I am?”
“I know who is listed on three birth certificates.”
“Then you know about Lily.”
Dr. Kline folded her hands on the file. “I know she was transferred out of Saint Agnes Medical Center at four days old. I also know the transfer documentation in Megan’s patient file was altered.”
Megan inhaled sharply. “You never told me that.”
“I couldn’t prove it before.” Dr. Kline looked apologetic. “I requested archived records last month. They arrived yesterday.”
“Yesterday?” I asked.
She opened a drawer and removed a copy of a transport form. “The original destination was not a neonatal hospital.”
I stared at her.
“Then where was she taken?” Megan asked.
Dr. Kline turned the paper around.
The destination line had been partially obscured by a stamp, but beneath it, faintly visible, were the words:
Hawthorne Family Center.
Megan frowned. “What is that?”
Priya’s warning echoed in my head.
People who believed they were protecting the Bellamy name.
I recognized Hawthorne.
