Chapter 5 - The Secret of St. Jude's
The hospital corridor smelt of industrial bleach and rubbing alcohol, a sterile scent that sent an immediate shudder down my spine. St. Jude’s Memorial was an old, monolithic brick structure built in the 1960s, its fluorescent lights flickering overhead as I hurried down the third-floor hallway.
Room 302 was tucked away near the end of the corridor, its door standing slightly ajar.
I pushed the door open gently. The room was dark, illuminated only by the faint green glow of a heart monitor and the yellow streetlights streaming through the window blinds. Lieing in the hospital bed, hooked up to an IV drip with a neck brace securing his posture, was Dr. Gregory Cooper.
His face was severely bruised, a dark purple contusion covering his right cheekbone, and his lip was split.
“Dr. Cooper?” I whispered, stepping softly into the room.
He turned his head slowly, groaning in pain as he looked at me. “Sarah... you came.”
“My God, what happened to you?” I rushed to his bedside, staring at his injuries in horror. “Did Brett do this?”
“Shortly after you left the clinic,” Dr. Cooper rasped, gripping the edge of his bedsheet. “He came back through the rear entrance. He knew I had recognized the medical anomaly in Hailey’s mouth. He attacked me in my private office... tried to make sure I wouldn't talk to the police.”
“Dr. Cooper, please, tell me what’s happening,” I begged, tears filling my eyes as I pulled a plastic chair close to his bed. “Brett told me my real baby died ten years ago. He said he took an abandoned child and gave her to me. Is that true? Is Hailey not mine?”
Dr. Cooper squeezed his eyes shut, letting out a long, shuddering breath. “Brett lied to you, Sarah. But not in the way you think.”
My heart stopped. “What do you mean?”
“Ten years ago, I was a young resident in the neonatal unit here,” Dr. Cooper explained, his voice trembling with emotion. “You were brought in for an emergency C-section. You were bleeding heavily, and your blood pressure was crashing. We saved your life, but the baby... your baby girl... was born with a severe respiratory distress syndrome. She needed immediate, specialized care in the ICU.”
“Did she die?” I breathed, holding my breath.
“No,” Dr. Cooper said firmly, looking directly into my eyes. “She didn't die. She survived.”
A sob ripped from my throat. “She lived? Then why... why did Brett tell me she died?”
“Because Brett wasn't just a hospital administrator, Sarah,” Dr. Cooper revealed, his knuckles turning white as he gripped my hand. “He was part of an illegal black-market adoption ring operating out of St. Jude’s. They targeted vulnerable, sedated mothers—women like you who had no family present during delivery. They would mark the infant as 'deceased' on official records, falsify death certificates, and sell the babies to wealthy, unregistered buyers for hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
The magnitude of the horror was so vast my mind struggled to comprehend it. “He... he was selling babies?”
“Ten years ago, a wealthy family from out of state paid Brett a fifty-thousand-dollar deposit for a healthy newborn girl,” Dr. Cooper continued, tears spilling down his bruised cheeks. “Your baby was supposed to be delivered to them the night she was born. But something went wrong. The buyer backed out at the last minute because the regional federal authorities launched a sudden audit on private adoption agencies in the state.”
Dr. Cooper paused, coughing weakly before continuing.
“Brett was terrified of getting caught with an undocumented infant in his possession. He couldn't sell her, and he couldn't return her to the hospital system without exposing his falsified death certificate. So he did the only thing that would cover his tracks completely. He brought her home to you.”
The room seemed to tilt around me. I leaned over the bed, my hands clutching my head as the reality crashed down on me.
Hailey was my daughter.
She wasn't a stranger’s child. She wasn't an abandoned baby. She was the child I had carried for nine months, the child I had bled for, the child I had loved with every fiber of my soul for ten long years.
Brett hadn't saved me. He had stolen my own child from me, hidden the truth, and forced me to live in a house with a monster who held her fate in his hands.
“She’s mine,” I whispered, a mixture of overwhelming love and absolute rage surging through my veins. “Hailey is my biological daughter.”
“Yes,” Dr. Cooper nodded tears dripping onto his pillow. “I suspected it the moment I looked at her dental records today. The unique root formation in her molars matched a genetic marker recorded in your medical chart from your delivery ten years ago. I kept those records hidden in my personal safe all these years, hoping one day I could prove what Brett’s ring had done.”
I stood up slowly, the weakness and fear that had paralyzed me all day evaporating into white-hot determination.
“Where is he taking her, Dr. Cooper?”
“He’s not going to Maine, Sarah,” Dr. Cooper rasped, grabbing my coat sleeve. “That was a distraction. He knows the police would watch the cabin. He’s heading for the private airfield in Miller’s Creek. His old associates from the adoption ring operate a private charter service out of Hangar 4. If he gets her on that plane, she will disappear forever.”
I pulled my phone out. “I’m calling Officer Ramirez—”
“No time!” Dr. Cooper urged frantically. “Miller’s Creek is only fifteen minutes from here! The police dragnet is focused on the interstate heading north to Maine! By the time they redirect their units to the airfield, that plane will be in the air!”
May you like
I looked down at the old doctor, nodded once, and turned on my heel.
I didn't hesitate. I didn't wait for backup. I sprinted out of Room 302, down the long hospital corridor, and out into the night, driven by the fierce, unstoppable instinct of a mother going to reclaim her stolen child.
