Chapter 8 - The Promise About My Baby
I slapped Daniel again.
This time he caught my wrist before I could do it twice.
Not hard.
Just enough to stop me.
“Let go.”
He did.
“You promised my father you would take my child away from me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he believed the truth would make you a target.”
“I am hanging-off-a-roof pregnant, Daniel. I think we passed ‘target.’”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t know anything.”
My voice broke.
“I married you. I defended you to friends who said your family was cold. I moved into that mausoleum because you told me we were building a life. And all this time, you and my father had an agreement about what would happen when I became inconvenient?”
“You were never inconvenient.”
“Don’t.”
Rosa stepped between us emotionally, if not physically.
“Claire. Hear the reason.”
I looked at her.
She said, “Your father believed Blackthorn House contains the original patient archive. Not copies. Originals.”
Daniel nodded.
“Dad hid them before he died.”
“Robert?”
“Yes.”
“And my father knew?”
“He suspected.”
I laughed bitterly.
“So the house is a giant evidence locker and I married into it.”
Daniel’s mouth tightened.
“Your father thought Eleanor would eventually realize you were the only person legally able to open Robert’s private trust vault.”
“Why me?”
“Because Robert named you.”
I stared.
“I met him once.”
“He trusted your father. And after Laura died, he felt responsible.”
Another answer that created three questions.
Rosa retrieved the second flash drive.
A scanned letter from Robert Vale appeared.
CLAIRE MORGAN, DAUGHTER OF LAURA MORGAN, SHALL SERVE AS INDEPENDENT KEYHOLDER UPON HER THIRTIETH BIRTHDAY OR UPON THE BIRTH OF HER FIRST CHILD, WHICHEVER OCCURS FIRST.
My birthday was in four months.
My baby was due in five weeks.
I covered my stomach.
“That is why Eleanor wants the baby dead.”
Daniel shook his head.
“No. If the baby dies, the second will releases everything.”
“Then why push me?”
He looked toward the stairs.
“Maybe she didn’t know you signed it.”
Rosa said, “She didn’t.”
That tracked.
Then the thought hit me.
“If she wanted me dead before the will activated, why wait until eight months pregnant?”
Nobody answered.
I looked at Daniel.
“Why now?”
His face changed.
The same way it had on the roof when Rosa mentioned the second will.
“Because yesterday,” he said slowly, “your obstetrician sent the Vale family office a routine insurance update.”
“So?”
“It included the baby’s blood type.”
I stared at him.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Daniel looked sick.
“Mine is O positive.”
“Okay.”
“Yours is A positive.”
I waited.
He whispered, “The baby’s preliminary cord-blood screen from your hospital file says AB negative.”
I frowned.
“Is that impossible?”
“Yes.”
That night I sat alone in the church nursery surrounded by donated cribs and faded Bible-story posters. My hand rested on my stomach while the baby rolled beneath my palm. I whispered that I was sorry for bringing her into this family. Daniel stood in the doorway and said I had not brought her into anything; he had. I told him we both had. He sat on the floor beside an empty crib and said then we would get her out. I asked whether he meant even if she had to grow up without him. Pain crossed his face, but he said yes. If that was what kept her safe, yes. For the first time, I believed Daniel might finally understand that love was not possession, promises, or the right paperwork. Sometimes it was agreeing to be the person left behind.
Rosa whispered, “Then Daniel cannot be the father.”
I looked at my husband.
And suddenly the promise to take my baby no longer sounded like a plan to protect me.
It sounded like a plan to protect a secret.
---
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