Chapter 3
I struggled with everything I had, but my body was too small and weak. My arms and legs felt like noodles. There was no way I could put up a fight.
Mary set me down on the table and turned to pick up the baby wrapped in the blanket.
It was Hannah, George's granddaughter. She was a wrinkled newborn, eyes closed, resting quietly.
Mary placed Hannah in my crib, adjusted the blanket so she looked exactly like the baby who belonged there, and then turned back to pick me up.
There was only one thing left for me to do. I cried.
I used every bit of strength this little body had and wailed as loud as I could. The sound was sharp and shrill, loud enough to wake the dead.
Mary's expression darkened. She clamped her hand over my mouth. "Shut up."
I bit down hard on her palm.
She yelped in pain and almost dropped me. Gritting her teeth, she stuffed me into the empty blanket, wrapped me up tight, and turned to leave.
The delivery room door swung open. Light from the hallway spilled in, and there stood a man in a military uniform, snow still dusting his shoulders.
It was Richard. He took in everything at a glance.
Mary was holding a bundled baby in her arms. Another infant lay in the crib. His wife was still unconscious.
"What are you doing?" Richard's voice was not loud, but it cut through the room like ice. The temperature seemed to drop instantly.
Mary's face turned pale. "M-Mr. Sinclair, I was checking in."
"Checking in, and you do not bother to knock?" Richard stepped inside, his gaze locked onto the bundle in Mary's arms.
I squirmed desperately in the blanket, wailing with everything I had.
Richard reached out and took me from her arms. He peeled back the blanket and saw my face, then looked over at the baby lying in the crib.
Two babies in one delivery room.
Richard had spent twenty years in the military. Nothing could shake him anymore. It took him three seconds to put the pieces together.
"Someone, get in here," Richard snapped.
The guards burst through the door.
"Hold her down," Richard said coldly.
Mary crumpled to the floor, trembling. Two guards seized her by the arms, one on each side.
Richard placed me back in the crib, checked that I was all right, then crouched down to Mary's level, staring her straight in the eyes.
"Who put you up to this?" he demanded.
Mary's lips quivered, but she couldn't say a word.
"I will ask you one more time," Richard said, his voice calm but icy.
Richard's tone was steady, but Mary was trembling hard.
"I-It was a woman. She gave me fifteen thousand dollars and told me to switch the babies," Mary stammered.
"Which woman?" Richard pressed.
"I don't know her name. She said her last name was Quinn."
Richard's eyes narrowed. The Qin name was no secret around the base.
"Where is she?" Richard demanded.
"Sh-she is waiting in a car parked at the hospital's back door, waiting for me to bring the baby out."
Richard stood up and turned to the guards. "Go to the back door and bring whoever is in that car here. Do not alert anyone else."
The guards rushed out.
Richard turned to look at Hannah in the crib. She was still sound asleep, with no clue about any of it.
He did not touch her. He stared for a few seconds, then grabbed the phone in the delivery room and dialed.
"John, this is Richard. I need you to come over right now. Yes, the military hospital, delivery room. Bring your people."
After hanging up, he dialed another number. "Zoe, get back here."
Three minutes later, Zoe rushed in. When she saw Mary collapsed on the floor and another baby in the crib, her expression changed dramatically.
"What happened here?" Zoe demanded, shocked.
"Someone tried to swap my baby," Richard said, his voice shaking for the first time.
He walked over to the hospital bed and gently took his wife's hand in his own.
Margaret's brow furrowed slightly in her sleep, but she didn't wake up.
I lay in the crib, watching the white lights overhead. My heart was still pounding, but slowly settling down.
I had survived the first trial, but this was nowhere near the end.
In my previous life, George's plot went way beyond swapping babies.
He had more than Mary planted at the military hospital. There were operatives in my father's squad, too.
And in my mother's family, he had kept someone undercover for ten whole years.
His scheme was so vast that, after three months of digging in my previous life, I barely saw the edges of it.
But this life was nothing like the previous. I already knew how everything played out and exactly where every piece on the board would land.