Chapter 13 - THE NURSERY DOOR
I don't remember leaving the restaurant.
I remember Luka driving.
I remember calling my mother.
No answer.
I remember calling again.
Still nothing.
Every traffic light felt personal.
Every slow car felt like an attack.
When we reached the hotel, two security officers were already on the sixth floor.
My mother's room door stood open.
I ran inside.
"Mom!"
She emerged from the bathroom holding my daughter.
Safe.
Alive.
Crying.
I grabbed them both.
"What happened?"
My mother was shaking.
"She wanted to talk."
"Evelyn?"
"She said she wasn't there to hurt anyone."
Luka searched the room.
"Where is she now?"
"Gone."
My mother handed me an envelope.
"She left this."
Inside was a photograph.
My father.
Older.
Alive.
Standing beside a newspaper dated four years after his supposed death.
I almost collapsed.
On the back was an address in Maine.
And a message.
THOMAS LEFT THIS LOCATION SEVEN YEARS AGO.
I DON'T KNOW WHERE HE WENT.
I NEVER ORDERED HIS DEATH.
ASK HARRISON WHAT HE DID TO ANTONIO.
The conspiracy was beginning to turn on itself.
Evelyn blamed Harrison.
Harrison blamed Evelyn.
Selena blamed them both.
Mason blamed everyone except himself.
And somewhere between their lies were two fathers who had tried to tell the truth.
We moved again that night.
This time, no hotel.
No apartment connected to Noah's firm.
Luka took us to a farmhouse owned by an old friend two hours outside Philadelphia.
The place was quiet.
Remote.
Protected.
For three days, nothing happened.
The baby slept.
My mother cooked.
Luka repaired a broken porch light.
For brief moments, life almost seemed ordinary.
He held our daughter for the first time on the second night.
Not because he asked.
Because I offered.
His huge tattooed hands looked impossibly careful around her tiny body.
"What if I do this wrong?"
He whispered.
I smiled for the first time in days.
"Welcome to parenthood."
He looked at me.
Something changed between us.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Trust.
Then Noah arrived with the court-certified DNA envelope.
The replacement test.
No tampering.
No missing evidence.
No question.
I opened it at the kitchen table.
Luka stood across from me.
My mother held her breath.
PATERNITY PROBABILITY: 99.9997%.
Luka Moretti was my daughter's biological father.
He closed his eyes.
I stared at the paper.
Then at him.
"Her name is Grace."
I hadn't told him officially.
His eyes opened.
"Grace."
"Grace Thomas Bennett."
I looked down.
Then crossed out Bennett with my pen.
"Grace Thomas Reed."
Luka's expression softened.
He didn't ask me to use Moretti.
That mattered.
Before anyone could speak, Noah placed another file on the table.
"We found Thomas."
My heart stopped.
"Alive?"
Noah looked at me.
"We don't know."
The file contained a recent bank transaction.
A small account under my father's childhood nickname had been used six weeks earlier.
Location.
May you like
Bar Harbor, Maine.
And the withdrawal had occurred on the same day Mason first transferred money to Selena for what they called the Heir Project.
