Chapter 16 - The Brother Nobody Ever Told Him About
The standoff ended with Evan in an ambulance and Margaret in cuffs again.
But the words followed Daniel all the way back to the station.
Your baby brother.
He cornered Claire outside the interview room.
"Did you know?"
She shook her head. "No."
"Mom was pregnant?"
"Not that I remember."
Ortiz entered with a printout from an old hospital archive.
"Margaret delivered a premature boy seventeen years ago."
Daniel stared at her.
"That's impossible."
"The child lived less than a day. Officially. No public obituary. Private burial."
The date was three weeks before Site 14.
Emily read the page. "What does that have to do with the truck?"
Ortiz's expression was grim. "We don't know yet. Evan is in surgery and Margaret is refusing to speak."
Daniel sat down hard.
Memory moved at the edge of his mind.
Rain.
The company pickup.
A baby seat in the back.
He had always thought that image came from another night.
"There was something behind me," he said.
Emily crouched in front of him. "What do you remember?"
"Crying."
Claire went pale.
Daniel pressed his fists to his temples.
"I remember Evan driving. I remember telling him to slow down. I remember... a carrier."
Ortiz pulled the original incident inventory from Site 14.
No baby carrier was listed.
"Why would Evan have Margaret's newborn in the truck?" Emily asked.
Daniel looked up.
Claire answered before anyone else.
"Because maybe he wasn't dead."
The room went silent.
Ortiz immediately requested neonatal records.
The archive had a problem.
The infant's discharge summary had been signed by Robert Keller, even though Keller was not a neonatal specialist.
Cause of death: respiratory failure.
Disposition of remains: private family transfer.
No funeral home was named.
Emily whispered, "There may never have been a burial."
Daniel felt sick.
Margaret had told no one. Not even her children.
Ortiz arranged to question Keller again.
He looked ten years older on the hospital video.
When she showed him the infant record, his face collapsed.
"I told her not to do it," he whispered.
Daniel leaned toward the screen. "Do what?"
Keller shook his head.
"Robert," Ortiz said, "where was that baby going the night Michael Carter was hit?"
Keller began to cry.
"Margaret couldn't let Thomas know the child survived."
Daniel's skin went cold.
"Why?"
Keller looked straight into the camera.
"Because Thomas was not the father."
------------------------------------------------------------
May you like
--- If you enjoyed the story, bookmark my site: https://vibe.treeiq.biz New stories are posted daily, so check back for updates.
