Twins.
I had given birth to twins.
A wave of dizziness washed over me so violently I had to lean against the cold metal wall of the shed to keep from collapsing. “This… this is a mistake,” I stammered, my brain refusing to process the words on the page. “I only brought one baby home. They told me… they told me the ultrasound was wrong, that the second heartbeat was just an echo. They told me I only had Lily!”
“They lied to you,” Sarah whispered, her voice hollow and dead. “The doctors, the attending nurse… and Mark. Especially Mark. And my mother.”
“Why?!” I shrieked, the agony ripping through my throat. “Why would they take my baby?! Why would they give her to Anna?!”
“Look at the next page,” Sarah said, pointing a shaking finger at the documents remaining in my hand. “Look at the financial ledger and the private adoption waiver signed that very night.”
I flipped the page. My eyes locked onto a signature at the bottom of a non-disclosure and immediate custody transfer agreement. The document stated that Infant B was to be immediately discharged to the custody of Anna Reynolds, with all medical expenses and a lump sum of two million dollars paid for by an anonymous offshore trust.
The signature authorizing the transfer of my child, forging my consent while I was heavily drugged and recovering from an emergency C-section, belonged to my husband, Mark Vance.
And beneath his signature was the witness line, signed in sharp, elegant cursive: Evelyn Vance.
They had sold my daughter. Or worse, they had given her away to a woman who was now acting as her ‘teacher’ right under my nose.
“There’s one more thing,” Sarah whispered, her face completely drained of color as she looked toward the dark entrance of the parking lot. “I looked up the medical history of the trust that funded Anna’s daycare and her house. Rachel… Anna isn’t just a random woman. And she didn’t get that baby by accident.”
Before I could ask her what she meant, a pair of blinding high-beams suddenly cut through the darkness of the loading dock.
A sleek, black SUV tore around the corner, its tires screeching against the asphalt. It didn’t slow down. It accelerated, heading directly toward us.
Through the glaring light of the windshield, I couldn’t see the driver’s face, but I saw the unmistakable glint of a cell phone mounted on the dashboard—actively streaming a live GPS tracking feed.
Mark’s car.
“Rachel, run!” Sarah screamed, shoving me toward my vehicle just as the black SUV veered sharply, aiming not for the road, but directly for where we stood.
