Chapter 8 - A FATHER FOR THE CAMERAS
The recording changed everything.
Federal investigators arrived before sunset.
They interviewed Miles.
They collected Grant’s devices.
They searched Mercer Clinical Systems under a sealed warrant.
Grant was not arrested.
Not yet.
His lawyers argued that the recording had been taken out of context.
They claimed he had spoken hypothetically.
They claimed “mourning two dead babies” referred to the ordinary risks of premature birth.
No one who heard his voice believed them.
But criminal cases were not built on belief.
They were built on evidence.
Grant understood that.
By morning, he launched a new strategy.
He became a father.
Not in the NICU.
In front of cameras.
He held a press conference outside St. Matthew’s Church.
He carried two small white blankets.
Photographers captured his red eyes.
He told reporters he had purchased the blankets for Noah and Elise.
He said he had been unfairly separated from his children by “a wealthy family using corporate power to settle a private dispute.”
“I made mistakes in my marriage,” he said.
“But I have never endangered a child.”
He asked the public to pray for the twins.
Then he announced a charitable fund for premature infants.
The website accepted donations within an hour.
My grandfather watched the broadcast without speaking.
I turned it off.
“People will believe him.”
“Some will,” Simone said.
“Why?”
“Because a man holding baby blankets is easier to understand than procurement fraud.”
The internet divided quickly.
Some people called Grant a monster.
Others called me a spoiled heiress.
Photographs of our wedding appeared everywhere.
Old classmates sold stories about my private nature.
Commentators said I had hidden my wealth to trap Grant.
Nobody seemed interested in the two babies whose lungs were still developing inside transparent boxes.
Priya removed the television from my room.
“You do not need strangers inside your recovery,” she said.
I thanked her.
At noon, Grant’s charitable fund received its first large donation.
One hundred thousand dollars.
The donor was Northstar MedTech.
Simone saw the payment immediately.
“They are moving money publicly now.”
“Why would they do that?”
“To make the relationship look legitimate.”
Northstar released a statement describing the donation as support for Grant during a family crisis.
The company denied any connection to altered Mercer products.
Then investigators reached the Rhode Island warehouse.
It was empty.
Every shelf had been cleared.
The original certificates were gone.
Surveillance footage had been erased.
The warehouse manager had disappeared.
Grant’s plan had begun before the lockdown.
He had expected the audit.
Maybe he had expected Noah’s component to fail.
The thought would not leave me.
At three, Dr. Ortiz allowed me to place my hand inside Noah’s incubator.
His skin felt impossibly soft.
I rested one finger against his palm.
His entire hand closed around it.
The grip was weak.
It was also the strongest thing I had ever felt.
“Hello, Noah,” I whispered.
“This is your mother.”
My voice broke.
“I am sorry the world was cruel before you even saw it.”
His fingers tightened.
I stayed that way until my arm ached.
Then I moved to Elise.
She was awake.
Her eyes opened briefly beneath the soft light.
“You have your great-grandmother’s stubbornness,” my grandfather said behind me.
I smiled for the first time in days.
“My mother’s?”
“Your grandmother frightened three governors and a bank chairman before breakfast.”
Elise stretched one tiny leg.
My grandfather touched the incubator glass.
“She would have adored them.”
A nurse entered carrying a sealed envelope.
“It was delivered for Emma.”
Marcus inspected it.
No return address.
Inside were photographs.
Grant entering a hotel with Vanessa.
Grant meeting Conrad.
Miles exchanging documents with a Northstar executive.
Then one photograph that made my blood run cold.
It showed me asleep in my hospital bed.
The photograph had been taken after the lockdown.
The angle came from inside the room.
On the back, someone had written a time.
2:43 A.M.
At 2:43, Vanessa had been downstairs.
Grant had been at his office.
Conrad was missing.
Someone else had entered my room.
Marcus pulled security logs.
No unauthorized badge appeared.
A person wearing a nurse’s uniform had entered for ninety seconds.
The camera showed her face partially covered by a surgical mask.
Priya watched the footage twice.
“She does not work here.”
The woman had stood beside my bed.
Then she had approached Elise’s incubator.
A respiratory therapist checked every connection.
Nothing appeared disturbed.
Marcus enlarged the image.
The woman carried a small object in her gloved hand.
A syringe.
Dr. Ortiz ordered immediate blood tests.
My heart began pounding.
“What could she have given Elise?”
“We do not know that she gave her anything.”
“But she could have.”
“We are checking.”
May you like
Elise’s monitor suddenly sounded.
Her temperature had begun to rise.
