Chapter 14 - PLAN B
Police treated Plan B as a threat but not a complete map.
There was no address. No step-by-step scheme. Just fragments:
Hospital.
Transfer.
Family emergency.
Cabin.
Mark recognized the last word.
His uncle owned a hunting cabin seventy miles north.
Officers drove there.
Empty.
At 6:30 the next morning, my contractions started.
Not Braxton Hicks.
Real ones.
Five minutes apart.
"No," I whispered. "Not today."
Olivia was already grabbing keys.
At the hospital, Dr. Patel confirmed I was in labor at thirty-five weeks and six days.
"We're going to take this one hour at a time," she said.
Security locked down my visitor list.
Only Olivia and Maya knew my alias.
Mark was not allowed in unless I changed my mind.
I didn't.
Labor has a brutal way of shrinking the world. For hours, Diane disappeared from my thoughts. There was only pressure, pain, breath, Olivia's hand, and the monitor tracing my baby's heartbeat.
Then, during a hard contraction, an alarm sounded in the hallway.
Not mine.
A security alert.
Olivia looked toward the door.
A nurse rushed in and locked it.
"Stay inside."
"What's happening?"
"Someone used a stolen employee badge on this floor."
My blood went cold.
The baby's heart rate dipped.
Dr. Patel snapped into command.
"Rachel, eyes on me. Forget the hallway. Your baby needs you here."
I breathed.
I pushed.
I screamed.
Forty-three minutes later, my daughter arrived crying like she was furious at the entire world.
A girl.
Diane had been wrong.
Olivia laughed and sobbed at the same time.
I held my daughter against my chest.
"Hi, Emma," I whispered.
Then someone pounded on the locked door.
A man's voice shouted, "Security! Open up!"
The nurse checked the camera screen.
May you like
Her face drained.
"That's not security."
