Chapter 1 - THE SHOES BESIDE THE BASSINET
Marcus’s brown boots stopped inches from my face.
I lay beneath the hospital bed with one hand pressed over my C-section incision and the other gripping my eight-year-old daughter’s wrist. Lily’s yellow raincoat crackled whenever she breathed. Above us, my newborn son made a soft, hungry sound from his bassinet.
“Well,” Marcus murmured. “There you are.”
His voice hadn’t changed in six months. Calm enough to make strangers trust him. Quiet enough to make me remember every door he had once locked between me and the outside world.
Lily covered my mouth before I could make a sound.
Through the narrow space beneath the bed frame, I saw a silver-edged badge clipped to Marcus’s black jacket. He had been barred from coming within five hundred feet of Lily or me. St. Mary’s required identification at every public entrance.
Yet he had walked directly into my postpartum room.
A second pair of shoes appeared in the doorway: white nursing clogs.
“Sir,” Nurse Harper said, “I need to see that badge.”
Marcus turned toward her. “Security transfer. Family situation.”
Harper didn’t move aside. “Which department?”
No answer.
The bassinet wheels squeaked. Harper had quietly pulled Noah behind her.
Marcus gave a small laugh. “Rachel, come out. Let’s stop embarrassing ourselves.”
My IV line had stretched tight around the bed rail. Blood had begun backing into the clear tubing. I knew I couldn’t stay hidden much longer.
Then Lily’s sleeve slipped beyond the bed frame.
Marcus saw it.
He crouched.
I shoved the IV pole with both hands. It crashed sideways between us, forcing him back. Harper slammed her palm against the emergency button beside the door and pushed the bassinet into the hallway.
Marcus grabbed the bed frame.
“You should’ve known I’d come for him.”
Two hospital security officers reached the room before he could pull me out. They pinned him against the wall while Lily crawled toward Harper and wrapped both arms around her waist.
Marcus didn’t fight. He only stared at me over the officers’ shoulders.
“You still don’t understand who brought me here,” he said.
A security supervisor unclipped the badge from his jacket and examined the back.
May you like
Harper looked at the printed number, then at me.
“Rachel,” she said carefully, “this credential belongs to the medical equipment company your husband works for.”
