Chapter 1 - The Locked Supply Room
The nurse did not ask permission.
Mae Rowland grabbed Leah Carver by the elbow, kicked the brake off the newborn bassinet, and pushed both mother and baby through an unmarked door at the end of the maternity ward.
“Inside. Now.”
Leah nearly fell. Eighteen hours of labor had left her shaking, stitched, and dizzy. Her son, Noah, slept beneath a pale blue blanket as if the world had not just tilted under his tiny body.
Mae pulled the door shut and turned the lock.
“Don’t come out,” she whispered. “Even if Nathan calls your name.”
Leah stared at her. “My husband?”
“Especially your husband.”
Footsteps approached outside.
Mae killed the light.
The supply room went black except for a thin blade of hallway glow under the door. Leah pressed one hand against her incision and the other over Noah’s blanket.
Then Doreen Carver’s voice floated through the wall.
“Once the psychiatric hold is signed, the baby leaves with family. Leah doesn’t get a choice.”
Leah stopped breathing.
Nathan answered quietly. “And if she fights?”
“She’ll be sedated.”
A paper rustled.
Nathan said, “I still don’t like this.”
Doreen’s heels clicked closer to the door. “You liked it when I paid your debts.”
Silence.
Leah felt something inside her break colder than fear.
Six days earlier she had dreamed Nathan stood beside a river holding their newborn while Doreen watched beneath a white umbrella. The baby slipped from his arms. Neither of them moved.
She had woken screaming.
Nathan had told her it was hormones.
Now, in the dark, Noah made a tiny sound.
Mae leaned over the bassinet. “Please, sweetheart. Not now.”
Outside, Doreen stopped.
“Did you hear that?”
Leah’s heart slammed against her ribs.
The doorknob moved once.
Then twice.
Nathan said, “That room is locked.”
Doreen lowered her voice.
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Only hours earlier, Nathan had stood beside Leah's bed and cried when Noah first wrapped his tiny fingers around Nathan's thumb. He had kissed Leah's forehead and said, "We did it." Now those words felt staged, like a line practiced for a room full of witnesses. Leah wanted to believe fear had twisted what she heard outside. She wanted the door to open and Nathan to laugh at some impossible misunderstanding. But Mae's face told her there was no misunderstanding left to hide behind.
“Then find the nurse with the key.”
