Chapter 5
Monica was super efficient.
Five days later, she got all of Jessica's prenatal and birth records from out-of-state hospitals.
Three births.
Three different hospitals.
All out-of-state.
Each time, she used a different name.
But the ID number never changed. It was always Jessica's.
In the contact and emergency contact fields, she listed David as her spouse.
Spouse.
She put down spouse.
The first birth record was eight years ago, March 16th.
Natural birth, baby girl.
Discharge date: March 17th.
March 17th.
It was the day I supposedly had a C-section.
I was knocked out in a city hospital.
Jessica was giving birth out-of-state.
On the same day.
The baby was brought back overnight from out-of-state.
And then put in my hospital room.
And like that, she became "my daughter."
The second birth record was six years ago, November 2nd.
Natural birth, baby boy.
Discharge date: November 3rd.
On that day I was told I had a premature birth.
The doctor said my water broke early, so they rushed me straight to the operating room.
Knocked out cold, I "gave birth" to a boy under general anesthesia.
The third birth record was three and a half years ago, July 19th.
Natural birth, baby girl.
On that day I was told I had a difficult delivery.
Once again, they put me under.
Three times, I was knocked out.
Three times, I had no clue what was happening.
Three times, I woke up with a baby in my arms.
Three times, I thought I'd barely survived.
Turns out, every single time, it was Jessica who really gave birth.
And the mastermind behind it all was David.
The one who handled the surgeries was David's uncle, William.
The ones who knew everything were Linda, Richard, May and Jessica.
I finished reading through the records and set the papers down. "Monica."
"Yeah?" she replied.
"I want to look into something."
"What is it?"
"What really happened to the three babies I carried myself?"
Monica was quiet for a moment. "Are you sure you want to dig into this?"
"Absolutely."
"No matter what the truth is?"
"No matter what."
She pulled up my hospital records for all three miscarriages.
All three times, I was admitted to hospitals right here in the city.
The first two times, the attending doctor was William.
By the third time, William had already been transferred, so someone else took over.
But I noticed a detail.
In the medication records for my third miscarriage, there was a type of traditional herbal medicine, taken orally.
The ingredients were exactly the same as the ones David had ordered online.
Which meant even though William Carter wasn't there for the third time, David took matters into his own hands.
He was the one who made me swallow those pills.
Then he drove me to the hospital himself.
Then he signed the surgery consent form himself.
Then he held my hand and told me, "It's okay. We'll have another chance."
I divided all the evidence into three sets.
I left one set at Monica's law firm.
I put one set in a bank safe deposit box.
I uploaded one set to the cloud, with a password only I knew.
Monica asked, "When are you going to act?"
I replied, "Soon.
"I need to do one last thing."
"What is it?"
"Arrange a dinner."
That night, I told David, "Next Saturday is my aunt May's sixtieth birthday. Let's all go out for dinner."
David said, "Sure, let's invite Linda and Richard too."
"Yeah," I smiled and added, "Let's invite Jessie as well."
He nodded. "Of course. We're family, after all."
Family.
Fine.
Next Saturday, the whole family will be there.
Let's see who's still smiling then.
I went back to my bedroom.
Closed the door.
Opened my phone.
I sent Monica a message: [Next Saturday night. I've picked the place. Have your assistant bring a recorder. Also...File the asset protection paperwork on Friday afternoon.
[Make sure the court freezes everything on Saturday morning. When they're all sitting at the table, clueless that their accounts are already frozen, that's when I'll lay all the cards on the table.]
Monica replied with one word: [Okay.]
I put my phone down.
Opened that memo, "The Ledger."
The final entry, done.