Chapter 4: Room 214
The hallway was bright and smelled like antiseptic and floor wax.
I walked slowly, the baby against my chest, my phone in my free hand.
A porter passed with a cart.
A visitor pressed the elevator button.
Nobody looked at me twice — just a new mother walking the corridor, the way new mothers do.
Room 214 was four doors down.
I pushed it open with my shoulder.
A woman in scrubs looked up from a desk in the corner.
She was perhaps sixty, with close-cropped grey hair and the kind of eyes that had seen too much to be easily surprised.
Her name badge said *Ruth.*
"You came," she said.
"You sent the messages."
"Close the door."
I did.
Ruth stood and crossed to me.
She looked at the baby with an expression I couldn't name — not pity exactly.
Something older than pity.
"How long have you known them?" she said.
"Claire is my sister.
I've known her my whole life."
Ruth nodded slowly.
"And Evan?"
"Fifteen years.
Since they married."
"Did you know about the Alderton Group?"
I shook my head.
Ruth went to the desk and picked up a manila folder.
She held it out.
"I've worked maternity for twenty-two years," she said.
"Three months ago, a couple came through here.
Different names, different faces.
Same arrangement.
The baby was a girl.
They refused her too." She paused.
"That baby went into emergency foster care the same night.
The couple disappeared.
We never found out who the third party was."
My throat tightened.
"What happened to the baby?"
"She's safe now.
But it took four months and two court hearings." Ruth tapped the folder.
"When I saw Evan's name on your admission paperwork, I recognized it from the incident report.
He wasn't the primary contact last time, but his name appeared in the financial correspondence we handed to the authorities."
I opened the folder.
Evan's name.
A wire transfer reference.
A company called Alderton Group Consulting, registered in the Channel Islands.
And a figure — a number with enough zeros that my vision blurred for a moment.
"They were paid," I said.
"They were going to be paid," Ruth said.
"Past tense, now that the baby is a girl.
My guess is the arrangement falls apart if the child doesn't match the specification.
Which means they don't get the money.
Which means they have a problem."
"And the problem is her." I looked down at the baby.
"The problem," Ruth said carefully, "is that they need you to sign the transfer documents before anyone asks questions.
Once you sign, she's legally in their custody.
After that, it becomes very difficult."
The baby opened her eyes.
Dark, unfocused, searching.
"What do I do?" I said.
Ruth was already reaching for her phone.
"You don't sign anything," she said.
"And you let me make a call."
Outside in the corridor, I heard footsteps.
Purposeful ones.
Coming this way.
Ruth heard them too.
She looked at the door, then at me.
"Is there anyone you trust?" she said.
"Anyone who can get here in the next twenty minutes?"
I thought of my daughter, Phoebe.
Twenty-six years old.
May you like
A paralegal.
My hands were already dialing.
