Chapter 7
The First Child
Celeste Ward looked different in jail clothes.
Without the gray coat, expensive shoes, and careful makeup, she seemed smaller. Older. Ordinary.
Sarah hated that.
Monsters were easier to understand when they looked like monsters.
Detective Ortiz stood behind Sarah in the interrogation room.
Celeste’s attorney sat beside her.
The recorder was on.
Sarah remained standing.
“What were you watching me for?”
Celeste looked at her attorney.
He sighed. “My client is cooperating under the terms already discussed.”
Sarah’s temper flashed. “I didn’t ask you.”
Celeste raised one hand.
“It’s fine.”
She looked at Sarah.
“Ryan found your name in my older files.”
“I know.”
“He thought the ledger in Lily’s bracelet meant you had been involved with me.”
“Involved how?”
“He didn’t understand the history.”
Sarah leaned across the table.
“Then explain it.”
Celeste took a breath.
“You think Lily was the first child from your family that I placed.”
Sarah’s body went still.
Ortiz stepped closer.
“What does that mean?”
Celeste looked directly at Sarah.
“You were adopted.”
Sarah stared at her.
Then she laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was absurd.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“My mother gave birth to me.”
“No.”
“I have photographs.”
“Your mother had been pregnant.”
Sarah’s laugh disappeared.
Celeste continued slowly.
“She lost the baby during delivery.”
“No.”
“A stillborn girl.”
“No.”
“Three days later, she took you home.”
Sarah pushed away from the table.
Ortiz said her name quietly.
Sarah ignored her.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because she had lost a child, and because another young mother had decided she could not raise hers.”
“Who?”
“Your biological mother’s name was Marianne Wells.”
The name meant nothing.
That made it worse.
Sarah looked at Ortiz as if the detective might declare the entire thing impossible.
Ortiz did not.
She asked, “When did this happen?”
“Twenty-nine years ago.”
“How were you involved?”
“I was working under another consultant then.”
“Legal adoption?”
Celeste hesitated.
Sarah laughed bitterly. “There’s the answer.”
Celeste looked down.
“The paperwork was incomplete.”
“That’s what you call it?” Sarah asked. “Incomplete?”
“Marianne signed a relinquishment.”
“Did my mother legally adopt me?”
“Eventually.”
“Eventually?”
“The documents were amended later.”
Sarah felt dizzy.
“My birth certificate?”
“Amended.”
“My father?”
“Not biological.”
“My entire childhood?”
“Real.”
Sarah slammed both hands on the table.
“Don’t tell me what was real.”
Celeste flinched.
Good.
Sarah wanted her to feel something.
“Why did you target Lily?”
Celeste closed her eyes briefly.
“Because your mother called me.”
Sarah went cold.
“What?”
“When you became pregnant at nineteen, your mother was afraid.”
“She called you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She believed you would struggle. She remembered what happened when she took you in. She thought she was solving a problem before it became one.”
Sarah’s eyes burned.
“She planned it before Lily was born.”
“She contacted me before the birth.”
Sarah turned away.
Her mother had not made one terrified decision in a hospital corridor.
She had started the machinery before Sarah ever went into labor.
“She sold my daughter.”
Celeste said, “She did not set a price.”
Sarah turned back.
“Stop making evil sound administrative.”
Celeste’s face tightened.
Sarah continued. “You hide behind words. Placement. Expenses. Relinquishment. Assistance. But a mother was told her baby died, and strangers paid money, and you called it paperwork.”
Celeste looked down.
“You’re right.”
Sarah hated that answer too.
Ortiz asked, “Why put the ledger in Lily’s bracelet?”
Celeste leaned back.
“Because by then I was scared.”
“Of who?”
“The people above me.”
Sarah frowned. “Above you?”
“You think I built the network.”
“Didn’t you?”
“No.”
Ortiz’s voice sharpened. “Who did?”
Celeste looked at her lawyer.
He nodded once.
“A physician named Dr. Peter Hanley handled the hospital side. An attorney named Gordon Pike created the legal shell. Several nurses and administrators participated over the years.”
“Hanley is dead,” Ortiz said.
“Yes.”
“Pike?”
Celeste looked at her.
“Alive.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Ortiz’s stare hardened.
Celeste added, “But Ryan does.”
Sarah turned. “Ryan?”
“Gordon Pike was Ryan’s first major client after college.”
The room went silent.
Pieces shifted again.
Ryan had not stumbled into Celeste’s business accidentally.
He had been connected to it for years.
“Why was Ryan watching St. Catherine’s?” Ortiz asked.
Celeste rubbed her wrists where the cuffs had marked them.
“Because Pike believed old records from Mercy General had been transferred there after Mercy closed its maternity wing.”
Sarah frowned. “What records?”
“The original intake books.”
“Why do they matter?”
“They contain real names. Birth mothers. Infants. Staff signatures. Things that were later changed in electronic systems.”
“So Ryan wanted the books.”
“Yes.”
“And me?” Sarah asked.
“Your employee access made you useful.”
Sarah thought of her badge.
Service corridors.
Records storage.
Areas people rarely noticed cleaners entering.
“Did he plan to use me?”
“He planned to search your apartment first.”
Sarah felt sick.
“The night Emma was abandoned?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“You found Emma.”
Sarah stared at Celeste.
Saving the baby had changed Ryan’s plan in more ways than she knew.
Ortiz asked, “Why was Emma in the alley at all?”
Celeste’s face tightened.
“Ryan owed Pike money.”
“Vanessa said Ryan owed you.”
“He told her that.”
“How much?”
“Nearly one hundred thousand.”
“For what?”
“He stole from accounts Pike controlled.”
“And Emma was payment?”
“No.”
Sarah looked up sharply.
Celeste continued. “Emma was leverage.”
“Against who?”
“Cole Mercer.”
Sarah stared.
“Emma’s biological father?”
“Yes.”
“What does Cole have?”
“Access to records Ryan needed.”
Sarah remembered Cole saying he left Ryan’s firm after suspecting financial crimes.
“Cole knew?”
“Not everything. Enough to scare Ryan.”
Ortiz leaned forward. “Was someone actually supposed to take Emma from the dumpster?”
Celeste took too long to answer.
Sarah knew before she spoke.
“No.”
Sarah’s hands curled into fists.
“Then you knew.”
“I knew Ryan planned to abandon her.”
“You asked Marcus about the garbage route.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Celeste’s eyes filled with tears.
Her attorney shifted uncomfortably.
Sarah felt no sympathy.
“Why?” she repeated.
“I wanted to know how much time there was.”
“To stop it?”
Celeste looked away.
“No.”
The honesty was brutal.
Sarah whispered, “You were going to let her die.”
“I was afraid Ryan would expose everything.”
“She was a baby.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
Celeste began crying.
Sarah stood.
“You know what I learned from you?”
Celeste looked up.
“Fear explains a lot of things.”
Sarah thought of Vanessa.
Her mother.
Rebecca.
Daniel.
“And it excuses almost nothing.”
She walked out.
Ortiz followed her into the hallway.
“Sarah.”
“I need air.”
“There’s more.”
Sarah stopped.
“Of course there is.”
Ortiz held up a folder.
“While Celeste was talking, we ran Marianne Wells.”
Sarah stared at the name.
“My biological mother.”
“Yes.”
“Is she alive?”
Ortiz hesitated.
Sarah closed her eyes. “Just tell me.”
“She appears to be.”
Sarah opened them.
“Where?”
“Detroit.”
Sarah’s heart pounded.
“Does she know about me?”
“We don’t know.”
Ortiz looked at the folder.
“There’s something else.”
Sarah almost laughed.
“There’s always something else.”
“Marianne had another child eight years after you.”
Sarah stared.
“A son.”
“My brother?”
“Yes.”
“What’s his name?”
“Noah.”
The name struck Sarah strangely.
Simple.
Familiar somehow, though she had never heard it connected to her life.
“Where is he?”
Ortiz’s expression changed.
“He disappeared at six months old.”
Sarah’s stomach dropped.
“What?”
“Marianne reported him kidnapped.”
“When?”
“Twenty-one years ago.”
“Was Celeste involved?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Sarah turned back toward the interrogation room.
Celeste was visible through the small glass window.
Sarah suddenly remembered the ledger.
Twenty-three placements.
Initials.
Dates.
Children turned into entries.
“What year did Noah disappear?” she asked.
Ortiz told her.
Sarah grabbed the folder.
She scanned the ledger copies until she found the year.
There.
N.W.
Six months old.
Not marked placement complete.
Marked TRANSFERRED.
Beside it was a single letter.
X.
Sarah felt her skin go cold.
“What does X mean?”
Ortiz looked through the interrogation-room glass.
“Let’s ask Celeste.”
Celeste’s answer changed everything again.
“X meant failed placement.”
Sarah leaned forward. “Failed how?”
“The child was not delivered to the intended family.”
“Where did he go?”
Celeste shook her head.
“I never knew.”
“Who took him?”
“Gordon Pike.”
Sarah stared.
“Why?”
Celeste’s voice dropped.
“Because Marianne was threatening to expose us.”
Sarah could barely process the words.
“My biological mother tried to stop you.”
“Yes.”
“And someone took her son.”
“Yes.”
Sarah stood slowly.
“Where is Gordon Pike?”
Celeste looked at Ortiz.
“I told you. Ryan knows.”
Sarah looked through the hall toward the holding cells.
Ryan Caldwell had tried to kill Emma.
He had stalked Sarah.
He had kidnapped a baby and nearly thrown her into a river.
And now he might be the only person who knew what happened to Sarah’s brother.
For the first time since his arrest, Sarah wanted to see him.
Ortiz stopped her at the door. “Before we go in, understand something. Ryan will try to make you angry because anger makes people careless.”
Sarah looked through the glass at him.
“He already tried to throw a baby off a loading dock. I don't think my opinion of him can get much worse.”
“That's not what I mean. He studies weaknesses. He used Vanessa's fear, Cole's guilt, Celeste's secrets. He'll look for yours.”
Sarah thought of Grace, Noah, her mother, and the empty years between all of them.
“He has plenty to choose from.”
May you like
Ortiz nodded. “Exactly. So don't let him choose the conversation.”
Sarah took a breath. “Then let's choose it for him.”
