Chapter 4 - The Second Wristband
They left the penthouse through the service elevator.
Adrian refused to use the private car downstairs. He carried Noah's car seat himself while Emily leaned on his arm, each step careful and painful.
Daniel Ruiz came with them.
Sophie remained behind.
"I can keep her here ten minutes," she told Adrian near the elevator. "Maybe fifteen."
"Don't risk more than that."
Sophie almost smiled.
"You still think I know where the line is."
The doors closed before Adrian could answer.
Outside, Manhattan had turned to wet silver. Rain streaked the lobby windows. Emily shivered despite the coat the hotel manager had brought up.
In the hired SUV, Adrian turned the heat high.
Noah slept through everything.
Emily did not.
She stared at the passing lights and rubbed one thumb over the edge of her hospital bracelet again and again.
Adrian noticed the habit.
"You're going to cut your skin."
She stopped.
A second later, she started again.
The hospital bracelet had become the story's strangest little object. Every time Emily was frightened, she scratched at it as though the plastic contained an answer.
"Why didn't you take that off?" Adrian asked.
Emily looked at it.
"I tried."
She turned her wrist.
The clasp was not the standard snap lock. A thin transparent filament had been threaded through it and melted shut.
Daniel leaned forward from the passenger seat.
"That's not normal."
Adrian examined it under the dome light.
Tiny black numbers were printed inside the band, hidden against Emily's skin.
Daniel read them.
"Specimen code."
Emily's breathing quickened.
"For what?"
"I don't know yet."
At the hotel, Adrian insisted Emily eat before anything else happened. She managed half a bowl of soup while Noah slept in a bassinet borrowed from housekeeping.
Daniel opened his laptop at the desk.
"I can access the hospital audit mirror remotely, but once IT sees my credentials, I may lose access."
"Then don't waste it," Adrian said.
Daniel entered the specimen code from Emily's bracelet.
A record appeared.
PATIENT: EC-4417.
COLLECTION TYPE: MATERNAL BUCCAL.
PURPOSE: KINSHIP PANEL.
Emily stared.
"They took my DNA too?"
Daniel nodded.
"Likely from a cheek swab while you were sedated or from blood already drawn."
Adrian felt a slow pressure building behind his eyes.
"Who ordered it?"
Daniel scrolled.
The field was blank.
Then a secondary screen opened.
There were two infant specimen codes linked to Emily's maternity chart.
One belonged to Noah Cole.
The other was listed only as INFANT B.
Emily gripped Adrian's sleeve.
"There was no second baby."
Daniel clicked the record.
The screen displayed a transfer log.
INFANT B had entered the genetics lab at 2:28 a.m., three minutes before Noah's sample.
"What does that mean?" Adrian asked.
"It means another newborn was processed under your wife's chart."
Emily shook her head.
"No."
Daniel opened the wristband printing log.
Two identical newborn bands had been generated within seven minutes of each other. Same mother name. Same delivery time. Same sex.
Different internal accession numbers.
"That's the second wristband Nurse Patel found," Daniel said.
Adrian looked at Emily.
"Could there have been another baby in the nursery with a similar name?"
"Not with my medical record number."
Daniel sat back.
"A duplicate infant identity could be used to hide a sample, hide a transfer, or temporarily relabel another child."
Emily put both hands over her mouth.
"Why would anyone do that?"
The answer came from Adrian's phone.
A message from Sophie.
I FOUND THE MEMORY CARD.
Then another.
MOM HAD IT IN HER WALLET.
Then a photo arrived.
The tiny black card rested in Sophie's palm.
Adrian typed: GET OUT OF THERE.
No response.
He called.
Straight to voicemail.
He called again.
Nothing.
Daniel's screen suddenly flashed.
ACCESS REVOKED.
Then the hospital portal went white.
"That's it," Daniel said. "They cut me off."
Adrian's phone buzzed once more.
This time it was a video from Sophie.
She was in the penthouse bathroom, speaking so quietly Adrian had to turn the volume up.
"Adrian, Mom called Marcus Vale. She told him to move Thomas tonight. She said, 'If Adrian finds him before the injunction is filed, we lose the trust.' I don't know where Dad is, but I heard the word Briarwood."
A noise sounded behind Sophie.
Her face jerked toward the door.
"Someone's coming."
The video ended.
Adrian searched the name.
Briarwood Recovery Center, Connecticut.
Daniel looked over his shoulder.
"Private neurological rehabilitation. Very expensive. Very discreet."
Emily whispered, "If Thomas is there, he can tell us why Victoria needed Noah's DNA."
Adrian was already reaching for his coat.
Emily caught his hand.
"You're not leaving us alone."
"I'm not."
He called his college friend, then a private security attorney he trusted outside the Cole orbit.
They arranged two licensed guards for the hotel floor.
Adrian hated every second of it.
Before he left, Emily touched the bracelet again.
The repetitive scrape of plastic against skin made him stop.
"Wait."
He took small nail scissors from the hotel sewing kit and cut through the melted filament.
The band came free.
Something metallic fell from inside it and bounced on the table.
A micro-SD card.
No bigger than a fingernail.
Emily stared.
"That was inside my bracelet?"
Daniel picked it up with a tissue.
"Someone hid data on you."
Adrian inserted the card into his laptop.
There was one encrypted audio file.
The filename was a date.
The night Noah was born.
Emily whispered, "Play it."
Adrian clicked.
Static filled the room.
Then Victoria's voice.
"Once the second band is printed, move the infant to genetics. Vale will handle the sample."
A man's voice answered.
Older. Weak. Familiar in a way that struck Adrian below the ribs.
"You promised no harm would come to Emily."
Adrian stopped breathing.
He had not heard that voice in twenty-one years.
But he knew it.
May you like
Thomas Cole was speaking.
And he had been inside St. Catherine's the night Noah was born.
