Chapter 3 - The Locked Nursery
The emergency room smelled of disinfectant and wet coats. A monitor traced my daughter's heartbeat across a screen while I tried to make sense of the sentence Elena had left behind.
"The heartbeat looks reassuring," Dr. Leah Harris told me. "But we're monitoring the contractions. Whatever happens with the police, your job tonight is to stay here."
"I don't want them to think I'm making trouble."
"Your employer's opinion isn't a medical diagnosis," she said. "You did the right thing coming in."
Vincent called twenty minutes later. His voice sounded scraped raw.
"They found an empty nursery behind a sealed door in the east wing. I didn't even know it was there."
"What was inside?"
"A crib. A broken mobile. A box of unopened baby clothes." He paused. "Elena had been making it ready for us. Vanessa told me she'd been selling the room's furniture."
I remembered Vanessa kneeling by the suitcase that morning. She had been holding a photograph facedown. I told Vincent what I'd seen: Elena in a white sweater, holding a little girl with dark curls.
"How old?"
"Three or four, maybe. Not a newborn."
He went quiet. "Then she had the baby."
"Clara," Vincent said, "you don't owe me another thing. Rest."
"Mr. Moretti, there's something else. Vanessa wasn't afraid of the suitcase until she got a message. She looked at it and said, 'Not yet.'"
"I'll tell the detective."
After we hung up, I lay back and listened to the baby's heartbeat. Daniel used to put his ear against my stomach before either of us knew what it meant. He'd once asked whether I liked the name Grace. He said it belonged to someone who had taught him how to be brave.
A nurse came in carrying a tablet. "We need to confirm your emergency contact, Mrs. Bennett."
"It's my neighbor, Mrs. Park."
"That's not what the record says." She turned the screen toward me.
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Under AUTHORIZED FAMILY REPRESENTATIVE was a name I'd never approved.
Richard Sterling.
