The Locked Delivery Room
Chapter 01 - The Locked Delivery Room
Rachel Hale reached the maternity floor of Saint Catherine’s Medical Center just after midnight.
She wore a pale hospital gown beneath an open cardigan, one hand supporting her stomach while the other pressed against the locked double doors of Delivery Suite Four. Her hair was damp from the rain, her face exhausted, and a hospital band hung loosely from her wrist.
“Ethan!” she called. “Open the door.”
Her husband stood behind the narrow glass window.
Ethan Hale was heir to Hale Medical Group, the company that owned Saint Catherine’s and twenty-three other hospitals. He wore an expensive gray suit and looked less like a frightened father than a man guarding a boardroom.
“You need to go downstairs,” he said through the intercom.
“My contractions are six minutes apart.”
“The doctor says you are not in active labor.”
“You took my phone. You left me outside the east entrance.”
Ethan glanced behind him.
Someone was lying in Rachel’s reserved delivery bed.
Nurse Lena Ortiz came running down the corridor with two orderlies. She saw Rachel slide down against the wall and immediately knelt beside her.
“Mrs. Hale, look at me. Can you breathe slowly?”
Rachel pointed toward the door.
“My husband locked me out.”
Lena checked the wristband.
RACHEL HALE.
DATE OF BIRTH: MAY 18.
PATIENT ID: 4417.
Then the suite door opened.
Ethan stepped out and blocked the entrance.
“My wife is confused,” he said. “Security has already been called.”
Lena looked past him.
Inside the suite, a blonde woman rested beneath white blankets while a fetal monitor traced a steady rhythm. She wore another wristband.
Lena moved closer.
The name printed on it was also Rachel Hale.
Same birth date.
Same patient number.
Two women had been admitted under one identity.
The blonde woman opened her eyes.
She looked at Ethan, then at Rachel on the floor.
“You said she agreed,” she whispered.
Rachel recognized her immediately.
Celeste Ward—Ethan’s former executive assistant and the woman he had sworn was no longer part of his life.
Lena reached for the emergency phone.
Ethan caught her wrist.
“Do not turn this into a scandal.”
Lena pulled free.
“It became a scandal when someone duplicated a maternity identity.”
Rachel lifted her head.
Celeste placed one hand over her own pregnant stomach.
May you like
And the monitor above her bed displayed an estimated delivery time of 3:00 a.m.
Exactly one hour before the Hale family trust was scheduled to expire.
