Chapter 5 - MADELINE'S MASTERPIECE
The news of Dr. Vance’s death hit like a secondary explosion. According to Detective Harris, the renowned fertility doctor had been found slumped over his mahogany desk with a single gunshot wound to the head, a staged suicide note planted nearby. But the police weren't buying it. The timing was too perfect, too convenient. Madeline was tying up loose ends.
"She knows the hospital found the poison," I said to Detective Harris, wrapping my arms around myself as a chill swept through my bones. "She knows we did the DNA test. She's destroying the evidence."
Harris, a seasoned veteran with a cynical gaze, took notes in a small spiral pad. "We have units dispatched to Madeline Hayes's primary residence, but she's in the wind. Her passport was flagged at the airport an hour ago, but she never boarded the flight. She’s playing a game, and she’s highly funded." He looked at the stolen documents on my bed. "I'm going to need to confiscate these. If what you're saying is true, we are looking at kidnapping, medical fraud, attempted murder, and now, a potential homicide."
"I don't care about the doctor!" I yelled, hysteria bubbling up in my chest. "Where is my biological child? And who are Luke's real parents? If Madeline wanted an heir she could control, why poison Luke? Why try to kill him today?"
Brandon froze. He looked at the floor, piecing the twisted logic of his mother's sociopathic mind together. "Because today was his fourth birthday party. The trust fund. The Hayes Family Trust activates when the firstborn grandson turns four. It was an ironclad clause written by my grandfather. Madeline couldn't touch the principal until the heir came of age. She didn't want Luke to die—she wanted him to have a medical emergency. She wanted to prove you were an unfit mother, a woman who accidentally poisoned her son, so she could seize emergency custody, take the trust money, and then reveal he wasn't ours to begin with, destroying our marriage."
It was a masterclass in psychological warfare and greed. She wanted the money, and she wanted to ruin me in the process.
"I need to see him," I demanded, throwing the hospital blanket off my legs. "I don't care about DNA. I don't care about biology. Luke is my son. I rocked him to sleep. I taught him how to walk. I am his mother!"
We rushed down the sterile corridors to the pediatric intensive care unit. Luke was awake, looking incredibly tiny in the large hospital bed, surrounded by monitors beeping in a steady, reassuring rhythm. When he saw me, his tired eyes lit up.
"Mommy," he croaked, his voice hoarse from the oxygen mask they had just removed.
I ran to his side and buried my face in his neck, breathing in the scent of him, the sweet, familiar smell of my little boy. "I'm here, baby. Mommy's here. I'm never letting you go."
"Did Grandma go home?" he asked innocently, his small hand stroking my hair.
"Yes, buddy," Brandon said, stepping up behind me and kissing Luke’s forehead, a tear slipping down his cheek. "Grandma is gone. She’s never coming back to hurt us."
May you like
But as Brandon said the words, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out. It was a text message from an unknown, encrypted number. It was a picture of a little girl, roughly four years old, playing in a lavish, manicured garden. She had Brandon’s exact nose, and my green eyes.
Beneath the picture was a single line of text from Madeline: If you ever want to see your real daughter, you will bring the boy to the old boathouse at midnight. Come alone, or she disappears forever.
