Part 2
Marcus did not speak for several seconds.
Neither did I.
The driver stood in the doorway, still breathing hard from running upstairs.
“The pregnancy was fake?” Marcus repeated.
The driver nodded.
“According to the hospital, she arrived just after five this morning complaining of abdominal pain. The doctors examined her and found padding strapped beneath her clothes.”
A cold feeling moved through me.
I remembered my mother’s belly.
How she always kept one hand beneath it.
How she never let me touch it.
How angry she became when I once asked whether the baby kicked.
Marcus looked toward me.
“Emily.”
His voice softened.
“Did you ever feel the baby move?”
I shook my head.
“Did she ever go to a doctor?”
“I don’t know.”
The driver stepped farther into the room.
“There’s more.”
Marcus gave him a warning look, but I had already heard enough to know there was no point pretending I wasn’t there.
“Say it,” Marcus said.
The driver lowered his voice.
“Laura Parker gave the hospital a false name, but security recognized her from the photograph we circulated. She left before the police arrived.”
“Alone?”
“No.”
“Derek Cole picked her up.”
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
“Find the car.”
“We’re already tracing it.”
Marcus looked at me again.
I sat with the blanket pulled to my chin, trying to understand why anyone would pretend to be pregnant for months.
Then I remembered something.
“The nursery.”
Marcus crouched beside the bed.
“What nursery?”
“At home.”
My voice sounded very small.
“Mom made me sleep in the living room because she said the baby needed my room.”
“What was inside?”
“A crib.”
“Anything else?”
“Boxes.”
“What kind of boxes?”
“I shrugged.”
“They were always locked.”
Marcus stood immediately.
“Get the address.”
The driver looked at me.
“Emily, do you know the street?”
I nodded.
I did not know the number, but I knew the laundromat with the blue sign across from our building and the grocery store where the owner sometimes let me sit near the heater.
Within ten minutes, Marcus had enough information to locate the apartment.
He made three calls.
The first was to a lawyer.
The second was to a woman named Detective Carla Ruiz.
The third was to someone he simply called Grant.
I listened from the bed.
“We need child protective services there before anyone enters,” Marcus said. “No shortcuts.”
The driver looked surprised.
“You’re involving the state?”
Marcus glanced at me.
“Yes.”
His answer was firm.
“Do this properly.”
By noon, we were sitting in a quiet room at the Baltimore Police Department.
Detective Ruiz was a small woman with silver-streaked hair and a voice that never rose.
She wore no uniform, only dark trousers and a navy sweater.
A social worker named Hannah sat beside her.
They asked me simple questions.
Where did I sleep?
Who cooked?
Did I go to school?
When had I last seen a doctor?
I answered as much as I could.
Some answers made Hannah’s eyes shine.
Others made Detective Ruiz write faster.
Marcus waited outside the glass wall.
He could have left.
I expected him to.
Instead, every time I looked up, he was still there.
The apartment search produced more questions than answers.
The nursery had never been intended for a baby.
There was a crib, but no mattress.
The locked boxes contained new clothes, toys, formula cans, and blankets.
All still sealed.
There were also dozens of printed adoption listings.
Not applications.
Photographs.
Children.
Each page included names, ages, and agency information.
Some faces had been circled in red.
Others had notes written beside them.
Light hair.
Too old.
Looks healthy.
Could pass as ours.
Detective Ruiz did not show me the pages.
I learned about them years later.
At six, I only knew the adults had gone quiet.
They found money too.
Cash hidden beneath floorboards.
Receipts from several bus stations.
Copies of birth certificates that belonged to children we did not know.
And one photograph of me taken when I was a baby.
On the back, someone had written:
Wrong one. Keep until replacement is ready.
That afternoon, Marcus came into the interview room and sat across from me.
His tattoos were hidden beneath a clean black shirt.
Without the coat and the night shadows, he looked less frightening.
Not gentle exactly.
But controlled.
“Emily,” he said, “you’re going to stay somewhere safe tonight.”
“With you?”
The question came out before I could stop it.
Marcus looked toward Hannah.
She answered carefully.
“Mr. Reed isn’t legally allowed to take you home yet.”
The word yet made Marcus glance at her.
She noticed.
“So I have to go somewhere else?”
“For a little while,” Hannah said.
I looked down at my shoes.
They were new.
Someone from Marcus’s house had bought them that morning.
Soft brown boots with thick socks.
I had never owned shoes that did not hurt.
“Will they send me back to Mom?”
“No,” Detective Ruiz said.
Her answer was immediate.
“Not tonight.”
“What about tomorrow?”
The adults exchanged a look.
Marcus leaned forward.
“No one is sending you anywhere without telling you first.”
I looked at him.
“Promise?”
He hesitated.
Maybe he knew adults should not promise what they could not control.
Then he said, “I promise I will find out where you are.”
It was not the answer I wanted.
It was the first honest promise an adult had ever given me.
The foster home belonged to a retired teacher named Mrs. Hall.
She had silver curls, three cats, and a kitchen that smelled like cinnamon.
She gave me a room with yellow curtains.
There were books on the shelf and a night-light shaped like a moon.
I still did not sleep.
At midnight, I sat on the floor beside the front door, wearing Marcus’s coat.
He had let me keep it.
Mrs. Hall found me there.
“Waiting for someone?”
I nodded.
She sat beside me without asking questions.
At one in the morning, headlights moved across the windows.
A black SUV stopped outside.
Marcus stepped onto the porch carrying a paper bag.
Mrs. Hall opened the door.
“You’re late.”
“I said I’d come.”
He looked at me.
I was still wrapped in his coat.
He held up the bag.
“Brought breakfast.”
“It’s nighttime,” Mrs. Hall said.
Marcus frowned at the bag.
“It was breakfast when I bought it.”
Inside were six cinnamon rolls.
I ate one at the kitchen table while he sat across from me.
He did not ask about my mother.
He told me the snake tattoo on his arm was supposed to be a dragon, but the artist had been drunk.
I believed him until Mrs. Hall laughed.
Then Marcus smiled too.
It was the first time I saw him smile.
He looked much younger.
For the next two weeks, he came every day.
Sometimes for ten minutes.
Sometimes for hours.
He brought coloring books, winter clothes, and a stuffed bear so large it barely fit through the door.
He was terrible at choosing toys.
Most of them were for toddlers.
One afternoon, I asked him why he kept visiting.
He looked uncomfortable.
“Because I said I would.”
“You didn’t.”
“I said I’d find out where you were.”
“You already know.”
He rubbed one hand over the scar near his eyebrow.
“Maybe I want to keep knowing.”
I considered that.
“Are you really my father?”
His entire body went still.
“My mother said you were.”
Marcus leaned back in the chair.
“No.”
The answer hurt more than I expected.
He saw it.
“But,” he added, “your mother did know who I was.”
“How?”
He glanced toward the kitchen, where Mrs. Hall was pretending not to listen.
“Years ago, I owned a nightclub.”
“Is that bad?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did Mom work there?”
“No.”
He paused.
“She came looking for me once.”
“Why?”
“She wanted money.”
“For me?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer was a lie.
I could tell.
Children notice hesitation better than adults think.
Before I could ask again, the doorbell rang.
Detective Ruiz entered with Hannah.
They looked serious.
Mrs. Hall turned off the radio.
Ruiz sat beside me.
“We found your mother.”
“Is she coming here?”
“No.”
“Where is she?”
“In custody.”
Marcus’s expression darkened.
“For what?”
Ruiz looked at him.
“Fraud, identity theft, and suspected involvement in an illegal adoption scheme.”
The words meant nothing to me.
Marcus understood them.
“What scheme?”
“They were collecting personal records from vulnerable families. Birth certificates, hospital papers, custody documents.”
“Why?”
“To create false identities for children.”
Mrs. Hall covered her mouth.
Ruiz continued.
“Derek arranged transportation. Laura approached pregnant women, shelters, and clinics.”
Marcus asked, “Where did Emily fit into this?”
Ruiz looked at me.
Then at Hannah.
The social worker reached for my hand.
I pulled it away.
“Tell me.”
My voice shook.
Ruiz answered carefully.
“We are still investigating how you came to live with Laura.”
“She’s my mother.”
“That may not be true.”
The room became very still.
I looked at Marcus.
He looked angrier than I had ever seen him.
Not at me.
For me.
Ruiz placed a photograph on the table.
It showed a young woman holding a newborn outside a hospital.
The woman was not Laura.
The baby wore a pink knitted hat.
Around the baby’s wrist was a white identification band.
The name printed on it was blurry.
But the date was clear.
My birthday.
I stared at the photograph.
“Who is she?”
Ruiz said, “We believe she may be your biological mother.”
My ears began ringing.
“Where is she?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Did she give me away?”
“We don’t know.”
“Did Laura steal me?”
Hannah said my name softly.
I pushed back from the table.
The chair scraped across the floor.
I ran toward the front door.
Marcus caught up outside, but he did not grab me.
He stayed several feet away.
Rain had begun falling.
I stood in Mrs. Hall’s yard with no coat because I had left his on the chair.
“Emily.”
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
“She said you were my father.”
“I know.”
“She lied.”
“Yes.”
“You lied too.”
His face tightened.
“I didn’t tell you everything.”
“That’s lying.”
“You’re right.”
I had not expected him to admit it.
The anger inside me cracked.
“Why did she choose you?”
Marcus looked toward the dark road.
Then he sat on the wet porch step.
He seemed enormous even when sitting.
“Because she knew I wouldn’t leave you there.”
“How?”
“Because my younger sister was abandoned when she was seven.”
I looked at him.
“What happened?”
“No one helped her soon enough.”
His voice became rough.
“She died before I found out where she was.”
Rain ran down his face.
Or maybe it was not only rain.
“Your mother came to my club years ago. She learned about my sister from one of my employees.”
“So she knew you would take me.”
“Yes.”
“She used her?”
Marcus nodded.
I walked closer.
“Why didn’t you tell the police?”
“I did.”
“When?”
“That morning.”
“But you said you didn’t call them.”
“I didn’t call them in front of you.”
He looked up at me.
“I had my driver call while you were asleep in the car.”
I stared at him.
He had protected me from seeing it.
Not hidden it completely.
Behind us, Detective Ruiz opened the front door.
“Marcus.”
He rose.
Her face was pale.
“We found Derek’s storage unit.”
“What’s inside?”
“Records on twelve children.”
She swallowed.
“And a live video feed.”
“From where?”
Ruiz turned the tablet toward us.
The screen showed a small room with no windows.
A mattress lay in one corner.
A little boy sat against the wall holding a toy truck.
He looked about four years old.
A woman’s voice sounded faintly from somewhere beyond the camera.
Laura’s voice.
Then she walked into view.
She was no longer wearing the fake pregnancy belly.
She crouched beside the boy and looked directly into the camera.
As though she knew we were watching.
She smiled.
Then held up a handwritten sign.
COME ALONE, MARCUS.
Beneath it was a second line.
OR THIS ONE DISAPPEARS TOO.