The Envelope Beneath the Hospital Bed
Chapter 01 - The Envelope Beneath the Hospital Bed
Emma Brooks had been holding her newborn daughter for less than ten minutes when her husband walked into the hospital room and asked the question that shattered everything.
“Whose baby is she?”
Caleb stood at the foot of the bed, soaked from the rain, his jaw tight and his phone clenched in one hand. Emma’s face was pale from an emergency delivery, and dark bruises circled her eyes after the car accident that had sent her into labor three weeks early. Still, she pulled baby Grace closer to her chest.
“What are you talking about?”
Caleb turned his phone toward her. On the screen was a private laboratory report stating that he was excluded as Grace’s biological father.
Emma read it twice. “I never agreed to this test.”
“My mother arranged it after someone sent her pictures of you with another man.”
The “other man” was Dr. Aaron Cole, Emma’s older brother, who had returned from overseas to help her through the pregnancy. Caleb knew Aaron. He had attended their wedding.
Before Emma could answer, Caleb’s mother, Margaret, entered carrying a paper cup. She looked surprised to see the report on Caleb’s phone, but the expression disappeared almost instantly.
“Caleb,” she said gently, “you don’t need to argue. Take time to think about what this means.”
A nurse named Nora stepped into the room and stared at Emma’s bruised face, then at Caleb’s raised voice. “Sir, you need to lower your voice or leave.”
Caleb pointed toward the baby. “I have a right to know the truth.”
“No,” Emma said quietly. “You had a responsibility to ask me before believing a document from an unknown number.”
She reached for her phone to call Aaron, but Caleb knocked it from the bedside table. It struck Margaret’s purse, sending its contents across the floor.
A sealed brown envelope slid beneath the bed.
Caleb bent down and picked it up. Across the front, in thick black letters, were the words:
CONFIDENTIAL PATERNITY RECORD — BROOKS INFANT.
Margaret’s cup began to shake.
“Give that to me,” she said.
Caleb tore open the envelope.
Inside were two reports from two different laboratories. One excluded him as Grace’s father.
The second showed a verified probability of paternity greater than 99.99 percent.
May you like
At the bottom of the false report was a payment authorization.
The credit card belonged to Margaret.
