Chapter 8 - THE LAWYER AND THE ULTRASOUND
"Sarah?" I gasped, the betrayal hitting me like a physical blow.
Sarah and I had been roommates in college. She was the maid of honor at my wedding. She was the one who had helped me review Nathan's prenuptial agreement four years ago.
"She's on my payroll," Margaret confessed, staring blankly at the grass where Caroline's car had been. The aristocratic matriarch was crumbling before my eyes, realizing she had been outplayed by her husband's bastard daughter. "I paid Sarah to switch the ultrasound files in your legal medical records. The ones with Dr. Prescott's real signature."
"Why?" Dad demanded, stepping closer to Margaret. "Why go through the trouble of stealing the original files?"
"Because without the original files," Nathan answered, his voice hollow as he stepped onto the lawn, "Emily can't prove Grace is her biological child. The hospital records were altered. The DNA test was faked. Legally, Grace doesn't exist yet."
Nathan looked at me, his eyes red and swollen. "Mom wanted to make sure that when Grace was born, she could claim custody by saying you were an unfit surrogate who had suffered a psychotic break. Sarah drafted the paperwork."
I felt physically sick. My mother-in-law, my husband, and my best friend had spent months building a legal cage around me, waiting for the moment I went into labor to steal my child.
"Give me the phone, Nathan," Dad ordered, holding out his hand.
Nathan didn't argue. He handed his phone to my father.
Dad dialed a number. He put it on speaker.
It rang twice.
"Nathan?" Sarah’s voice came through the speaker. She sounded nervous. "Is it done? Did the shower stunt work?"
"Hello, Sarah," I said, my voice remarkably steady despite the hurricane inside me.
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. "Emily. I... I can explain."
"You have twenty minutes to bring the original ultrasound files to my father's house," I said. "If you don't, Caroline is sending the fraud file to the FBI, and you're going to prison with Margaret."
"Caroline? What does Caroline have to do with this?" Sarah panicked. "Emily, please, Margaret threatened to ruin my law firm if I didn't help her! I have the files in a safe deposit box!"
"Get them," my father commanded. "Or I'll call the Bar Association myself."
Dad hung up the phone.
He turned to Margaret's security guards. "You boys are off the clock. Unless you want to be accessories to federal extortion."
The two large men looked at each other, nodded silently, and walked away down the street, abandoning Margaret on the lawn.
"Emily," Nathan took a step toward me, reaching out a trembling hand. "Please. I didn't want this. I was just so angry. Mom showed me medical records saying I was sterile. I thought you cheated on me."
I slapped his hand away.
"You didn't ask me, Nathan," I said, my voice cold and hard. "You didn't come to your wife and ask for the truth. You chose to humiliate me in front of a hundred and fifty people. You chose to give my grandfather's watch to another woman."
I reached into my pocket, pulled out the heavy silver pocket watch, and threw it at his chest. Nathan caught it clumsily.
"Keep it," I said. "It suits you. It’s broken on the inside, too."
Suddenly, a sharp, searing pain ripped across my lower back, wrapping around to my abdomen. It wasn't a Braxton Hicks contraction.
It was real.
I let out a sharp cry, doubling over and gripping the edge of the moving truck.
"Emily!" Dad rushed to my side, catching my arm. "The stress. It's inducing labor."
"I'm only seven months," I gasped, the pain cresting like a wave. "It's too early, Dad. Grace isn't ready."
"She has to be ready," Dad said, his clinical hospital voice taking over. He looked at Nathan. "Get your mother out of my sight. If either of you come near St. Catherine's, I will kill you myself."
Dad helped me into the passenger seat of his SUV. I was breathing heavily, terrified for my little girl.
As Dad got behind the wheel and started the engine, Margaret finally moved.
She walked over to my window. She didn't look angry anymore. She looked desperate.
"Emily," Margaret pleaded, placing a hand on the glass. "If you don't sign the trust over to Caroline when the baby is born, she'll send us to prison. Please. You have to save our family."
I rolled the window down exactly one inch.
"You don't have a family, Margaret," I whispered. "You just have a bank account."
I rolled the window up. Dad slammed the gas, leaving Margaret and Nathan standing alone in the dark, surrounded by the ruins of my nursery.
We sped toward St. Catherine's.
"Breathe, sweetheart," Dad coached me, gripping the steering wheel tight. "I'm calling the OB floor. I still know the charge nurse. We're going straight up."
"Dad," I cried out as another contraction hit, harder than the last. "What if Caroline is waiting at the hospital?"
"She won't be," Dad promised.
But when we pulled into the ambulance bay of St. Catherine's, the sliding glass doors opened, and a woman in a dark suit stepped out into the harsh red lights.
It was Caroline.
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And she was holding a gun.
TITLE: THE STANDOFF AT ST. CATHERINE'S
