Chapter 4 - The Infiltration Plan
Back in Columbus, Nathan Carver was starting to crack under the pressure.
Sitting in the sterile, leather-bound luxury of his mother’s downtown penthouse, he stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the skyline. The police hadn't found Leah, and independent reporters were beginning to ask uncomfortable questions about why a healthy mother suddenly required an emergency psychiatric hold hours after giving birth.
“She’s going to go to the press, Mom,” Nathan said, pacing across the Persian rug. “Or worse, she’s going to contact a federal attorney. If the adoption board finds out we forged those medical evaluations, Simone’s agency goes down, and our family name is ruined.”
Doreen sat at her mahogany desk, her expression an unreadable mask of cold calculation. She took a slow sip of her espresso. “Your wife is an emotional, uneducated girl from a working-class family. No one will believe her word against the combined medical testimony of Dr. Rusk and myself. However... we need to draw her out of hiding.”
“How?”
“By setting a trap,” Doreen said smoothly, picking up her phone. “We leak a false report that your sister’s estate in rural Mansfield holds evidence of the original hospital files. Desperate mothers always make predictable mistakes when they think they’re protecting their children.”
Little did Doreen know, her encrypted phone line had already been intercepted.
Inside the Hocking Hills cabin, Tom stared at a glowing laptop screen as the audio recording of Doreen’s phone call played through the speakers.
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“They’re taking the bait,” Tom said with a grim smile. “They think you’re desperate enough to break into the Mansfield estate to find the original birth certificates.”
“Let them think whatever they want,” Leah replied, adjusting her baby carrier as her son slept peacefully against her chest. “Because while they’re waiting for me in Mansfield, Marcus Vance and I are going to pay a very interesting visit to Dr. Celia Rusk at Silver Birch Women’s Center.”
