One in the crib.
One in the car seat.
Mara stared between them.
“Oh my God.”
The unidentified woman rushed inside.
“You’re early.”
“Whose baby is that?”
“Give me the carrier.”
“Whose baby is that?”
“Mara—”
“WHOSE BABY IS IN MY SISTER’S CRIB?”
Evelyn entered.
She grabbed Mara by the shoulders.
“Lower your voice.”
Mara shoved her away.
“You told me Elena was already here.”
“She is now.”
“You used another baby?”
Evelyn looked directly toward the hidden camera.
Then she crossed the room.
The image shook.
Blackness.
The recording stopped.
No one in the Moretti hallway spoke.
Finally Vincent turned.
“Where is Mara?”
Evelyn said nothing.
Isabella stepped forward.
“Mom.”
Nothing.
“Where is my sister?”
Evelyn’s lips trembled.
“Mara left Chicago.”
“When?”
“The next morning.”
“Why?”
“She was upset.”
Isabella stared at her.
“Mara hasn’t answered me in eleven days.”
“She needed space.”
“Mara called me every day while I was pregnant.”
Evelyn looked down.
Something shifted inside Isabella.
Fear became fury.
“You told me she was working double shifts.”
“She asked me to—”
“You told me she didn’t want to visit because seeing the baby was difficult for her.”
“Isabella—”
“You lied.”
Vincent took out his phone.
“Anthony.”
“Yes?”
“Lock the gates.”
Evelyn spun around.
“You cannot hold me here.”
“No,” Vincent said. “But the police can.”
Detective Naomi Keller arrived twenty-three minutes later.
By midnight, the nursery had become a crime scene.
By sunrise, three facts were clear.
First: Isabella Moretti had never legally surrendered custody of her daughter.
Second: somebody had inserted a fraudulent document into the hospital discharge file.
Third: an unidentified infant had been brought into the Moretti home almost three hours before Elena was discharged from the hospital.
What remained unclear was why.
Evelyn said nothing without an attorney.
Isabella refused to sleep.
She sat beside Elena’s crib, one hand on her daughter’s back.
Vincent stayed beside her.
“Did she hurt you before tonight?”
Isabella didn’t answer.
He waited.
Eventually she rolled up her sleeve.
More bruises.
Finger-shaped.
Vincent looked away.
Not because he couldn’t stand seeing them.
Because he was afraid of what Isabella would see on his face.
“She kept giving me pills,” Isabella whispered.
“What pills?”
“She said they were what the hospital prescribed.”
Vincent turned back.
“You didn’t check?”
“I was exhausted, Vincent. I was bleeding. I could barely walk across the room.”
His stomach tightened.
“She told me you agreed she should manage everything until I recovered.”
“I never agreed to that.”
“I know that now.”
She swallowed.
“She kept telling me I was forgetting things.”
“What things?”
“Conversations. Decisions. People visiting.”
“Were you?”
“I thought I was.”
Tears finally appeared.
“She told me I signed documents giving her temporary authority over Elena.”
Vincent took her hands.
“You didn’t.”
“She showed me my signature.”
“Bella.”
“I started wondering if I had.”
“You didn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you would remember giving away our daughter.”
“What if I was drugged?”
Vincent had no answer.
Isabella’s face crumpled.
“I thought I was losing my mind.”
He pulled her against him.
