Chapter 2 - THE OTHER FATHER
Hospital security arrived before anyone explained anything.
Two officers.
A charge nurse.
Then a woman from patient safety whose badge read:
DR. LENA WALSH — MATERNAL SAFETY
Mason immediately stepped away from Ryan.
Good.
Too late.
Also good that he understood that.
Ryan got to his feet.
He looked at the man from the doorway.
“David, don't.”
The man finally came fully into view.
Early forties.
Dark suit.
No hospital badge.
He looked as exhausted as I felt.
“My name is David Bennett.”
Bennett.
I looked at the second wristband.
He saw me do it.
“My wife is in Room 614.”
I stared.
“What does your wife have to do with my baby?”
David looked at Ryan first.
That made me angrier.
“Look at me.”
He did.
“Natalie delivered a daughter this morning.”
“When?”
“Three eighteen.”
Nora had been born at 3:10.
Eight minutes.
I felt Mason move closer behind me.
Dr. Walsh stepped in.
“Mrs. Carter, nobody is saying the child in your arms is not yours.”
“That is exactly what everyone has managed not to say.”
“We had a temporary identification incident during an electronic downtime event.”
“Was my baby switched?”
“We do not have evidence of a physical switch.”
“That's not no.”
“No.”
Dr. Walsh looked me directly in the face.
“It is not no.”
At least she said it.
My knees felt weak.
A nurse brought a chair.
I sat without arguing.
Nora slept through it.
David looked miserable.
Ryan looked like a man calculating which lie to tell first.
I held up the Bennett wristband.
“How long did you know?”
Ryan answered too fast.
“Not long.”
David looked at him.
Ryan's jaw tightened.
I turned to David.
“How long?”
“Since a little after five.”
It was almost nine.
I looked at Ryan.
“You knew for four hours.”
“You were recovering.”
“I was awake at six.”
“You were medicated.”
“I fed her at six-thirty.”
“Claire—”
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
There.
Mason moved.
I held up one hand.
“No.”
He stopped.
Good.
Then I looked at David.
“Why did you know?”
“Hospital staff told Natalie and me there had been a band problem.”
“Natalie knows?”
David hesitated.
Wrong hesitation.
“She knows there was a documentation problem.”
“Does she know there were two bands?”
“No.”
“Why?”
His face tightened.
“Because she hemorrhaged after delivery.”
That slowed me.
Not enough.
“And?”
“And I agreed to wait until she was medically stable before explaining everything.”
“You agreed with who?”
David looked at Ryan.
My stomach turned.
The two men had already talked.
Without either mother.
Dr. Walsh told security nobody was leaving the unit until patient safety completed immediate identification checks.
Not detention.
A temporary clinical restriction on moving either newborn off the maternity floor while records were verified.
I looked at Ryan's papers.
“You said I was leaving without her.”
Dr. Walsh turned.
“What papers?”
Ryan reached for them.
Mason got there first.
He picked the pages off the floor.
Handed them to Dr. Walsh.
She read the first one.
Then the second.
Her expression hardened.
“These are not hospital discharge documents.”
I looked at Ryan.
May you like
He stared back at me.
And suddenly the two wristbands were not the only thing he had been lying about.
