Chapter 5: The Name I Was Never Supposed to Hear
I made him say it out loud.
"Tell me what you mean," I said.
"Say it clearly.
Don't manage it."
Luke's hands were on his knees.
He wasn't looking at me anymore.
"Before we got together," he said.
"There was a period — about three months — when we were broken up.
You were seeing someone."
"I wasn't seeing anyone."
"You were.
You just didn't know his real name."
The room was very quiet.
Camille hadn't moved from her corner.
Okafor was in the doorway with his notepad down at his side.
"His name is Marcus Hale," Luke said.
"He goes by different names.
He approached you deliberately.
I didn't find out until after we reconciled, after you were already pregnant."
"That's not — " I stopped.
Three months.
We had broken up in February.
I had met someone briefly.
A man named — I had known him as Daniel.
Daniel Marsh.
It had lasted six weeks and ended quietly.
I had never thought about him again.
"He's not someone you walk away from easily," Luke said.
"When I found out who he was, I hired someone to look into him.
What came back — " He exhaled.
"He has a pattern, Sarah.
He targets women.
He gets them pregnant.
Then he takes the children."
"Takes them how?"
"Legally.
Through custody.
He has money, connections, lawyers.
He files for paternity, establishes rights, and then he uses those rights to remove the child from the mother's life piece by piece." Luke finally looked up.
"He already knew about June.
He's known since your seventh month.
He was planning to file the day she was born."
My C-section incision was throbbing.
I pressed my hand against it and breathed.
"And Dara Wills?" I said.
Luke closed his eyes.
"Dara is his.
She didn't know it either, not at first.
Her daughter — the baby in Room 14 — is his biological child.
He was going to use the same approach with her."
"So you switched them," I said.
"You switched my baby with hers."
"I was trying to move June before his people could get to her.
Renata is someone I trust — she was supposed to take June to my sister's house and wait.
I was going to tell you everything once she was safe.
I panicked.
The plan — it wasn't supposed to happen like this."
"You took my baby out of this room without telling me."
"Yes."
"You let another woman think her child was missing."
He didn't answer.
"Luke." My voice cracked on his name.
"You let me hold a stranger's baby and not know."
"I know," he said.
"I know what I did."
Okafor stepped fully into the room.
"Mr.
Harmon," he said.
"I need the address where the baby was taken."
Luke looked at me one more time.
May you like
Whatever he was looking for, I don't think he found it.
He gave Okafor the address.
