Chapter 4: What Luke Said
They brought Luke back into the room twenty minutes later.
He had asked for that.
He had specifically asked to speak to me alone.
Okafor allowed it with conditions — door open, officer in the hallway, Camille remaining in the corner with her arms folded.
Luke sat in the chair across from my bed.
He looked like himself.
That was the worst part.
He looked like the man who had driven me to every prenatal appointment, who had assembled the crib in three hours on a Saturday, who had cried — actually cried — when we heard June's heartbeat for the first time at twelve weeks.
"Sarah," he said.
"I need you to listen to me."
"Where is June?"
"She's safe.
I promise you she is safe."
"That is not an answer."
He leaned forward.
His voice dropped low, the way it did when he was trying to manage me.
I had never noticed the managing until now.
"There are things about this situation that are complicated.
Things I couldn't tell you during the pregnancy because I didn't want to put stress on you."
"Luke." My voice came out flat.
"Where.
Is.
June."
"She's with someone I trust.
Someone who was going to — " He stopped.
Recalibrated.
"I need you to understand that what I did, I did to protect her."
"From what?"
He didn't answer.
"From me?" I said.
"Were you protecting my daughter from me?"
"No.
Not from you."
"Then from who?"
His jaw tightened.
He glanced at Okafor in the doorway, then back at me.
"I can't say that here."
"You can't say it, or you won't?"
"Sarah — "
"Eli heard you on the phone this morning." I watched his face.
"He heard you say to keep her there.
He heard you say the name Renata."
Something moved behind Luke's eyes.
Not guilt.
Calculation.
"Eli is six years old," he said.
"He misheard."
"He also watched you switch the blankets.
He described exactly what you did, in the exact order you did it.
And there is camera footage of you in that corridor." I pressed my hand against my incision and sat up straighter.
"So don't tell me what Eli misheard."
Luke stood up.
Okafor took one step into the room.
Luke raised both hands and sat back down.
"I'm not the villain here," he said.
"I know that's what this looks like.
But there is another person involved in this — a person who was going to take June the moment she was born.
I was trying to get her out before that could happen."
"Who?" I said.
He shook his head.
"Luke.
Who was going to take her?"
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he said, very quietly:
"Her biological father."
The word biological landed like something dropped from a height.
I had been with Luke for four years.
June was his.
I had never — there had never been any question of —
"That's not possible," I said.
May you like
Luke said nothing.
And his silence was its own kind of answer.
