The day after my twins were born, I saw the woman who had already stolen them once reach toward their bassinets—and I knew that if I screamed too soon, everyone in the maternity ward would think I was insane.
Chapter 2
I screamed so loudly the entire floor stopped moving.
“Lock the hospital down!”
The charge nurse stared at me. “Mrs. Miller—”
“My babies are gone!”
That changed everything.
Security guards rushed toward the elevators while nurses checked rooms, stairwells, closets, restrooms, and supply areas. Patients protested when the exits were closed, but I heard them as if from underwater.
Nurse Emily came running back, white-faced.
“The old man got dizzy. I only left for two minutes.”
“Two minutes was enough.”
My knees weakened.
“Where’s Linda?”
Security found her near a second-floor storage room.
I slapped her.
I shouldn’t have, but when I saw her face, forty stolen years struck with my hand.
She stumbled backward. “Are you crazy?”
“Where are they?”
“Your babies are missing and you blame me?”
Her eyes filled instantly.
That was her gift.
Linda understood how easily tears could turn suspicion into sympathy.
Several women from the maternity ward had followed us. One whispered, “She’s been helping Sarah all week.”
Linda heard it and began crying harder.
Then a man pushed through the crowd.
Arthur.
He wore his Army uniform, but I barely noticed the rank on his chest. I saw only the face I remembered growing older beside children who were mine.
He caught me as I staggered.
“Sarah?”
“Our babies.” I grabbed his sleeve. “Someone took them.”
For one second, shock emptied his expression.
Then the soldier took over.
“Sergeant Cole,” he said to the man behind him, “seal every exit. Nobody leaves.”
Security began objecting.
Arthur did not raise his voice.
“My newborn children are missing from this building. Help me find them.”
Even Linda went quiet.
Arthur looked at the empty bassinets and then at her.
She immediately stepped forward.
“Major Sterling, I don’t know what this woman has told you, but she’s confused. She attacked me. I was only trying to help.”
Arthur’s gaze settled on her.
“How do you know who I am?”
Linda blinked.
Someone nearby said, “The soldiers mentioned his rank.”
“They mentioned my rank,” Arthur replied. “Not my name.”
The color drained from Linda’s face.
I pointed at her. “Ask how she knew your name three days ago. Ask why she wanted to know whether your family was coming. Ask why she studied the bassinets. Ask why she called Grace by Noah’s name before correcting herself.”
“I never—”
“You were learning them.”
Linda shook her head violently. “She’s sick.”
Arthur turned to me.
“What else?”
I remembered bleach.
Wet sheets.
The smell surrounding my children when Linda reached the base in my first life.
“Laundry.”
Arthur frowned.
“She won’t use the main exit. Check the laundry route, service elevators, loading docks, carts—everything.”
“How could you know that?” Linda whispered.
I looked at her.
“Because you did it before.”
She went completely still.
Arthur did not ask what I meant.
“Cole. Laundry.”
The sergeant ran.
Three minutes later, a shout echoed from below.
Then a gunshot.
I tried to stand.
Arthur caught me. “Easy.”
“Take me there.”
“Sarah—”
“Take me there.”
He saw something in my face and stopped arguing.
He pushed my wheelchair himself.
At the end of the basement laundry corridor sat a gray canvas cart piled with sheets. A soldier had a man pinned to the floor beside it.
The man’s white wig had fallen off.
He wasn’t old.
A doctor pulled aside the sheets.
A thin cry rose from underneath.
My son.
“Oh, God.”
“They’re alive,” the doctor said.
Noah was cold and furious.
Grace was cold and silent.
When a nurse lifted her, her lips were bluish.
“No. Grace. Please.”
The doctor checked her quickly. “She has a pulse.”
Arthur knelt beside me.
His face had lost all military hardness.
“I’ll carry them.”
He lifted Noah with enormous hands that trembled despite everything. A nurse placed Grace against my chest beneath heated blankets.
Then Grace made one tiny sound.
Barely a breath.
It was enough.
I bent over both babies and sobbed.
Back upstairs, doctors examined them while Arthur stood at the door like a wall.
Linda was brought past us under guard.
The woman who had seemed so gentle hours earlier now looked desperate.
“Search her belongings,” Arthur said.
Linda jerked against the security officer. “You can’t do that.”
Police arrived soon afterward and opened her suitcase with hospital administrators present.
Beneath a false lining they found forged military dependent forms.
The name printed across the top was Sarah Miller.
Spouse: Arthur Sterling.
Children: newborn twins.
A map showed the route from Clear Creek Hospital to Fort Harrison.
There were bus tickets, notes about Arthur’s assignment, and a carefully written story:
My husband abandoned me during pregnancy. I have brought his children to him because I have nowhere else to go.
At the bottom of the suitcase were two tiny blankets.
Each was embroidered with the initials A.S.
Linda had not planned simply to steal my children.
She had planned to steal my name, my husband, and my entire life.
