Chapter 5 - The Missing Eleven Minutes.
Luca was through the door before the security technician could shout.
The nurse disappeared around the corner at the end of the maternity wing.
Luca followed without running wildly.
He moved with controlled speed, using the reflections in the polished floor to track her turns.
She pushed through a stairwell door.
By the time Luca reached it, the alarm above the frame was blinking red.
He descended two flights.
A door slammed below.
Then everything went quiet.
Luca stopped on the landing.
He listened.
A faint metal scrape came from the floor beneath him.
He moved down slowly.
The nurse's abandoned badge lay near the emergency exit.
The name printed on it was TARA BELL.
Luca picked it up by the edge.
The photograph did not match the woman he had chased.
Security arrived moments later.
The stairwell exit led into the employee parking structure.
The woman was gone.
When Luca returned upstairs, Emily was furious.
"You left us."
The accusation hit harder than he expected.
"For four minutes."
"Four minutes is enough for someone to take a baby."
Luca looked at Grace.
"You're right."
Emily blinked because she had expected an argument.
"I won't do it again."
Dr. Hale placed the fake badge in an evidence bag.
"Tara Bell resigned eight months ago."
"Then someone copied her credentials."
"Apparently."
The security technician opened his laptop.
"The deletion wasn't done locally."
Luca looked at him.
"Explain."
"Someone accessed the camera system using an administrator account from outside the hospital."
"Whose account?"
The technician hesitated.
"Dr. Hale's."
Emily looked at the administrator.
Dr. Hale's face went white.
"That's impossible."
Luca asked for the access log.
The login had come from an office belonging to Cole Meridian Holdings.
Nathan's company.
Emily laughed without humor.
"So he walks away, comes back with a lawyer, steals my DNA, and deletes hospital footage."
"We don't know he did all of it."
"You keep defending him."
Luca's eyes sharpened.
"I'm not defending him."
"Then what are you doing?"
"Trying not to accuse the wrong person while someone else uses your anger to hide."
Emily looked away.
A hospital clerk entered carrying a replacement copy of Grace's birth paperwork.
"The original binder is missing."
Everyone turned toward her.
"What do you mean missing?"
"It was logged into records twenty minutes ago, but it's not there now."
Luca's jaw tightened.
The paper with his signature had been stolen.
The security technician checked the camera outside records.
Another gap appeared.
This one lasted exactly ninety seconds.
Emily whispered, "They're collecting everything."
Luca walked to the bassinet and looked down at Grace.
Something shiny caught his attention beneath the pink blanket.
He lifted the edge carefully.
A silver paperclip had been attached to the baby's blanket.
It was not the hospital's plain metal clip.
A tiny symbol had been engraved into it.
Luca's expression changed instantly.
Emily saw it.
"What is that?"
He did not answer.
His thumb moved across the engraved shape.
It was a small black crown inside a circle.
Emily stood.
"Luca, what is it?"
He looked at her with a seriousness that made her stomach drop.
"It's a warning."
"From who?"
May you like
Luca closed his hand around the paperclip.
"My family."
