Chapter 11 - The Last Person to See Lily Alive
Dr. Mercer did not answer me in the courtroom.
Not because he refused.
Because Detective Ruiz stepped between us before I could get close enough to demand one.
“Everyone stops talking,” he said.
I almost laughed.
The previous forty-eight hours had involved a resurrected mother, a stolen trust, a dead sister I had never met, an abandoned newborn who turned out to be my nephew, and an administrator whose name kept appearing wherever the truth became inconvenient.
Stopping had become impossible.
Mercer looked at Rachel.
“You said you wouldn’t come back.”
Rachel’s expression sharpened.
“You said you would protect Lily.”
“I tried.”
“She died.”
“I know.”
“You left her.”
“I left the room.”
“Same difference.”
I moved around Ruiz.
“What happened?”
Mercer rubbed both hands over his face.
Then he looked at Noah.
“I reached the clinic shortly after Lily delivered. She had lost a lot of blood. The doctor said she was stable, but exhausted.”
“Was Noah with her?”
“Yes.”
“Was she conscious?”
“Yes.”
“Did you speak to her?”
“For about twenty minutes.”
“What did she say?”
Mercer glanced at Ruiz.
The detective nodded.
“She said the scholarship files were not the real evidence.”
I stared.
“What was?”
“She had a ledger.”
“What ledger?”
“A handwritten record Samuel Pike kept before he disappeared. Names, account numbers, dates, payments.”
Ruiz stepped closer.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Rachel said, “That’s why they killed her.”
Mercer turned on her.
“You don’t know that.”
“I know Maddox has been looking for that ledger for sixteen years.”
Jonah stood beside me, jaw clenched.
“Did Simon know about it?”
Rachel looked at him.
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes.
A muscle jumped in his cheek.
“Then my brother died for a notebook.”
“No,” Rachel said quietly. “He died because he loved Lily.”
Jonah looked at her with so much pain that I had to look away.
Mercer continued.
“Lily told me she had hidden the ledger somewhere no one connected to the investigation would think to look. Then she made me promise that if she didn’t survive, Noah would go to Clara.”
My chest tightened.
“She knew me?”
“She knew everything about you.”
I could barely speak.
“How?”
“She followed you online for years.”
“That’s creepy.”
Mercer smiled sadly.
“She thought so too. She called it ‘being a coward with Wi-Fi.’”
The line hit me harder than any revelation.
It sounded like someone I might have loved.
Someone who might have teased me.
Someone I would never meet.
“Why didn’t she contact me?”
“She did.”
I frowned.
“No, she didn’t.”
“She wrote you dozens of messages.”
“I never got them.”
Mercer looked at me.
“She said every email bounced. Every social media account blocked her.”
Marlene.
I immediately thought of her.
Then remembered how many passwords Vanessa had known.
How often Caleb had “fixed” my laptop.
Ruiz wrote that down too.
I said, “So Lily is stable. You talk to her. Then what?”
“A nurse came in and said someone from the county wanted to discuss infant placement.”
Dana shook her head from the back of the courtroom.
“No county worker was assigned until after Lily died.”
Mercer’s face tightened.
“I know that now.”
“Who was it?” Ruiz asked.
“A woman. Mid-fifties. Short blond hair. Gray coat.”
Rachel went pale.
“What?”
Mercer looked at her.
“You know her?”
Rachel whispered, “Helen Baird.”
The registrar.
The woman whose office had processed my fake disciplinary complaint.
Ruiz swore under his breath.
“Baird was at the clinic?”
Mercer nodded.
“She introduced herself as Helen Moore. I didn’t recognize her because I had only been president at Ashford for a few months and she worked mostly in records.”
“What did she do?”
“She asked me to step out while she spoke with Lily.”
“And you did?”
“Yes.”
Rachel slammed her palm against the table.
“You left her alone with one of Maddox’s people?”
“I did not know.”
“What happened when you went back?”
Mercer’s face changed.
“I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“The hallway was closed. Medical emergency.”
My throat closed.
“Lily?”
“Yes.”
“Did she die then?”
“No.”
That surprised everyone.
“She was transferred to intensive care.”
“Did you see her again?”
“No. Security made me leave after I argued with staff.”
“Who called you when she died?”
“No one.”
“What?”
“I learned from an internal contact the next morning.”
Dana said, “That doesn’t make sense. Emergency contacts are notified.”
Mercer looked at the intake form.
“My name had been removed.”
Ruiz stared at him.
“By who?”
“I never knew.”
Rachel said, “Baird.”
“Maybe.”
I held Noah closer.
“Then how did Noah end up outside?”
Mercer’s voice lowered.
“When I returned the next morning, the clinic told me the infant had already been transferred.”
Dana frowned.
“To where?”
“They wouldn’t say.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Apparently not.”
The room filled with silence.
I remembered the cardboard carrier.
The blue-star blanket.
No paperwork.
No note.
Just Noah.
Someone had taken him from official custody.
Someone had then placed him exactly where I would find him during my early volunteer shift.
That was not abandonment.
That was delivery.
The thought made my scalp prickle.
“Who knew I would be at the clinic that morning?”
Dana said, “Your volunteer schedule was public to staff.”
Mercer said, “Ashford’s service-learning office had it.”
Jonah looked at me.
“Registrar?”
“Caleb could access service records,” I said.
Ruiz’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, and looked at Mercer.
“We have a problem.”
“What?”
“Helen Baird’s house is empty.”
“Did she run?”
“Maybe.”
Ruiz listened again.
His expression darkened.
“No. Wait.”
He stepped away.
We all watched him.
When he hung up, he said, “Her car was found at a bus station.”
Rachel asked, “Any sign of her?”
“Blood in the trunk.”
The courthouse seemed to tilt.
“Whose blood?” I asked.
“Lab doesn’t know yet.”
Mercer said, “Maddox is cleaning up.”
Ruiz looked at him.
“Or someone wants us to think he is.”
My phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number.
I opened it.
A photograph filled the screen.
Noah’s blue-star blanket.
Only this time, it was laid across a table.
On top of it sat a black leather ledger.
Under the picture was one sentence.
ASK VANESSA WHAT SHE TOOK FROM THE BABY.
May you like
I looked up.
Vanessa was no longer in the courtroom.
