Chapter 2 - THE DEATH CERTIFICATE
By sunrise, St. Catherine’s Women’s Hospital had lawyers in the lobby and police in its records department.
Mallerie had not slept.
Neither had Gideon.
Owen finally slept in a portable crib in the penthouse bedroom with the door open. A hotel pediatric nurse, hired through an independent agency at Detective Ortiz’s suggestion, sat nearby.
Mallerie appreciated that Gideon had not asked her to become the baby’s overnight caregiver.
She was exhausted, frightened, and possibly Owen’s biological mother.
That did not automatically make her his nurse.
At seven fifteen, Ortiz returned with preliminary findings.
The death certificate in Gideon’s adoption file was fake.
No woman named Mallory Reeves had died at St. Catherine’s on November 17.
Mallerie’s own hospital record existed, but large sections had been altered after discharge.
Her chart originally documented a live male birth.
Six hours later, an amendment changed the outcome to neonatal death.
The amendment carried Dr. Voss’s electronic credentials.
Mallerie pressed both hands to her mouth.
“I knew I heard something.”
Gideon looked at her.
“What?”
“A cry.”
Her eyes filled.
“They told me I imagined it because I was sedated.”
Ortiz sat across from her.
“You may have heard your son.”
Mallerie looked toward the bedroom.
For ten months she had punished herself for remembering a sound nobody else confirmed.
Now the sound had a place in reality.
Gideon asked, “Where is Voss?”
“Her home is empty. Car gone. Phone off.”
Jonah said, “Border alerts?”
Ortiz gave him a look.
“Already done.”
Gideon’s attorneys arrived with the adoption originals.
One lawyer, Priya Shah, looked physically ill.
“I reviewed these.”
Mallerie stared at her.
Priya did not hide behind procedure.
“I reviewed them and believed they were genuine. That does not make them genuine.”
“Who supplied them?”
“Dr. Voss and an adoption intermediary named Elaine Mercer.”
Ortiz asked, “Licensed?”
“Her license was valid at the time.”
“Was?”
Priya swallowed.
“Suspended six months ago in Ohio for irregular placement records.”
Gideon’s head snapped toward her.
“You knew?”
“I learned this morning.”
“Why did nobody check after the adoption?”
“Because the placement was complete.”
Mallerie said quietly, “That’s the problem.”
Everyone looked at her.
“You stopped checking once you got what you wanted.”
Priya accepted the criticism.
“Yes.”
The hospital records contained another disturbing detail.
Mallerie’s signed consent for emergency surgery had been scanned correctly.
The alleged relinquishment form had the same signature.
Exactly the same.
Not similar.
Identical pixel for pixel.
Someone copied it.
Mallerie stared at the enlarged comparison.
“I never signed away my baby.”
“No,” Ortiz said. “It appears you did not.”
The death certificate Mallerie had received after discharge was real in format but fraudulently issued through a funeral-service portal. It listed an infant male as deceased without a name.
There was no cremation record.
No burial record.
No body transfer.
Mallerie had been told hospital policy required private handling because the baby died shortly after birth.
She had been too ill to challenge anyone.
Her mother had died years earlier.
Her father was absent.
Her closest friend lived in another state.
Dr. Voss had sat beside her bed and told her grief would become worse if she insisted on seeing the body.
“I believed her,” Mallerie whispered.
Gideon said, “You were drugged after surgery.”
“I still believed her.”
“That is not the same as choosing freely.”
Mallerie looked at him.
She did not need absolution.
But accuracy helped.
At noon, the lab called.
The expedited DNA result was ready.
Ortiz insisted they receive it through the lab physician.
Mallerie sat at the table.
Gideon stood behind a chair but did not sit.
The physician appeared on secure video.
“Mallerie Reed is biologically consistent with being Owen Vale’s mother. The probability of maternity exceeds 99.99 percent.”
Mallerie heard nothing after mother.
Her body folded forward.
A sound escaped her that she did not recognize.
Gideon moved, then stopped before touching her.
“Mallerie?”
She held up one hand.
Not yet.
He waited.
That mattered.
Owen woke in the next room and began babbling.
Mallerie stood.
“Can I—”
Gideon’s voice broke.
“Yes.”
She entered the bedroom.
Owen saw her and kicked both legs.
The crescent birthmark flashed above his ankle.
Mallerie lifted him from the crib.
“My baby.”
The words were barely sound.
Owen grabbed her hair.
She laughed and cried at once.
Gideon remained in the doorway.
His face looked devastated.
Mallerie understood why.
The same test that returned her son threatened to take Gideon’s.
She kissed Owen’s forehead.
Then looked at Gideon.
“You’re his father.”
He shook his head.
“Not biologically.”
“I didn’t say biologically.”
He looked away.
Family court would decide legal questions.
But ten months of feeding, waking, comforting, doctors, first teeth, first fever, and every ordinary day existed regardless of fraud.
Mallerie would not erase them.
Ortiz entered carefully.
“There’s more.”
Mallerie held Owen tighter.
“What?”
“Gideon’s DNA result excludes him as biological father, as expected.”
Gideon nodded.
“But the database comparison produced a familial lead.”
His eyes narrowed.
Ortiz continued.
“Owen’s biological father appears to be related to someone already in a federal offender database.”
Mallerie went cold.
“Who?”
Ortiz handed Gideon a name.
He read it.
Then sat down.
Mallerie had never seen him frightened like that.
“Gideon?”
He looked at her.
“The match is to my younger brother.”
Mallerie stared.
“Your brother is Owen’s father?”
“No.”
Gideon’s voice was hollow.
“My brother died three years ago.”
Ortiz finished the thought.
“But he had a son.”
Gideon closed his eyes.
“Adrian.”
Mallerie remembered the name.
May you like
A man she had dated briefly eleven months before Owen was born.
A man who had introduced himself only as Adrian Cole.
