Catherine’s, a team was waiting.
Bright lights passed above me as they rushed me down the corridor.
A nurse cut away part of my dress.
Another placed forms in front of Thomas while the obstetrician studied the monitor.
“We have fetal distress,” the doctor said.
“We need to deliver now.”
My mother’s threat echoed in my head: When they take that baby, she’ll come home with me.
I caught the doctor’s wrist before she moved away.
“No information to my mother,” I said.
“No access.
No decisions.
Her name is Vivian Mercer.
My brother is Harrison Mercer.
Neither is authorized.”
The doctor nodded.
“We’ll lock the chart.”
Thomas leaned over me as they prepared the operating room.
“The police have the video,” he said.
“Sarah has the backup card.
Ruiz is on his way.”
“The donation money?”
“The officers collected it.
Every envelope.”
I closed my eyes for one second.
The next thing I remembered was waking beneath a dim hospital light with a burning ache across my abdomen.
Thomas sat beside the bed, still wearing the pale blue shirt he had chosen for the baby shower.
There was dried blood on one cuff.
I searched his face.
“Where is she?”
He stood so quickly that the chair scraped the floor.
“She’s alive.”
I began to cry before he finished.
Our daughter had been delivered by emergency cesarean section.
She weighed four pounds, nine ounces and needed help breathing, but her heart was steady.
The doctors had found signs of placental separation caused by the blow.
Another delay could have killed us both.
“Can I see her?”
“As soon as they move you.
She’s in the neonatal unit.”
I held his hand against my cheek.
“What happened at the house?”
Thomas hesitated.
“Your mother was arrested.
Harrison too.”
“For the checks?”
“For more than the checks.”
He unlocked his phone and showed me a message from Detective Ruiz.
The hidden camera beneath the dessert table had recorded continuously for nearly two hours before the attack.
Thomas had reviewed only the final minutes while I was being loaded into the ambulance.
The earlier footage showed my mother and Harrison arriving before most guests.
They stood near the dessert table while Sarah carried gifts into the living room.
My mother asked Harrison whether his phone storage was empty.
He said, “Enough for the part we need.”
She replied, “Do not start until she’s on the floor.
I don’t want anything before that.”
