PART 4
The woman in the photograph was my sister.
Emily.
My sister who had supposedly died six years earlier.
I stared at the picture until the words on the paper blurred through my tears.
“That’s impossible,” I whispered.
Judy shook her head.
“I know what you’re thinking. But I saw her.”
Mark stepped closer.
“Don’t listen to her.”
I looked at him.
“Then tell me the truth.”
He didn’t answer.
“Is my sister alive?”
His silence was enough.
I felt something inside me break.
“You knew?”
Mark finally whispered, “I found out three months ago.”
“Three months?”
He nodded.
“Emily contacted me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because she threatened you.”
My hands tightened around the paper.
“She threatened me with what?”
Mark looked toward the baby sleeping peacefully in my arms.
“With your sons.”
Judy suddenly interrupted.
“That’s not the whole story.”
Mark turned sharply.
“Judy, stop.”
She ignored him.
“Emily wasn’t the person who ordered the baby taken.”
My heart pounded.
“Then who was?”
Judy looked at Mark.
“He knows.”
I turned toward my husband.
“Mark?”
He closed his eyes.
Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out a second envelope.
The same kind of envelope I had seen in the video.
He placed it on the bed.
“I was supposed to give you this when you were discharged.”
I stared at it.
“What’s inside?”
He didn’t answer.
I opened it myself.
There was a photograph.
Two newborn babies.
My twins.
Alive.
And beneath the photograph was a handwritten note:
“One of your sons was never supposed to leave this hospital.”
My stomach dropped.
I looked at Mark.
“What does that mean?”
Before he could answer, the heart monitor beside my bed suddenly began beeping rapidly.
The baby in my arms started crying.
Then the hospital lights went out.
Everything became completely dark.
A few seconds later, emergency lights flickered on.
Judy looked toward the door.
It was open.
And my baby’s bassinet was empty.
I screamed.
“MY BABY!”
Mark grabbed my shoulders.
But I pushed him away.
Someone had taken my surviving son.
Again.
Then my phone buzzed.
A message appeared from an unknown number.
“Now you understand why your husband was afraid.”
A second message arrived immediately after it.
“Come alone to the old maternity wing if you want your son back.”
And beneath the message was a photograph.
My missing baby was in someone’s arms.
But the person holding him was wearing the exact same hospital bracelet I had seen on my sister in the video.
PART 5 — TO BE CONTINUED…
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