Chapter 3 - TWO BABIES, ONE EMPTY CRIB
At 3:46 in the morning, Lena Carter's first daughter entered the world weighing three pounds, fourteen ounces.
Her second daughter weighed three pounds, eight ounces.
Neither cried.
Doctors carried them immediately into separate neonatal resuscitation stations while another team fought to stabilize Lena.
Her heart rhythm was dangerously irregular.
Her core temperature remained critically low.
She had lost blood during the emergency cesarean.
And then, twenty-three minutes after the twins were born, Lena's heart stopped.
Damon didn't know any of that yet.
He sat outside surgery beneath a muted television, staring at the blood drying on his hands.
Victor sat twenty feet away with a detective beside him.
He had stopped pretending to cry.
His lawyer had arrived.
That told Damon everything.
Innocent husbands didn't normally call criminal-defense attorneys before sunrise.
Victor's lawyer, Bernard Shaw, was speaking quietly to Detective Marisol Vega.
“My client voluntarily came to the hospital. He is deeply concerned for his wife.”
“He also owns the freezer.”
“He owns a company that owns the freezer.”
“And his wife says he locked her inside it.”
Bernard smiled politely.
“A statement allegedly made while suffering severe hypothermia, extreme distress and premature labor.”
Damon stood.
The lawyer looked at him.
“You're Damon Cross?”
“Yes.”
“I understand you and Mrs. Carter have a history.”
Victor looked toward Damon.
There it was.
The strategy already forming.
Make Damon the unreliable witness.
Former partner.
Former friend.
Old enemy.
Perhaps jealous lover.
Damon almost smiled.
Victor had no idea how much Damon despised him.
Not because Victor had married Lena.
Because Victor had taken advantage of the one weakness Lena had always carried.
Her loyalty.
When she loved someone, she believed them until the evidence became impossible to ignore.
Five years earlier, Victor had used that loyalty to destroy Lena's trust in Damon.
Now he had tried to use it to kill her.
The operating-room doors opened.
Dr. Emily Hayes emerged.
Everyone stood.
Victor moved first.
“My wife?”
The doctor looked at him.
“She suffered cardiac arrest.”
Victor's knees seemed to weaken.
Damon felt the hallway tilt.
“But?”
“We restored circulation after four minutes.”
Damon closed his eyes.
Four minutes.
“We have her on a ventilator,” the doctor continued. “Her body has been rewarmed, but she is critically ill.”
“What about the babies?” Victor asked.
“One twin is responding reasonably well considering the circumstances.”
“And the other?”
Dr. Hayes hesitated.
“Twin B is experiencing severe respiratory distress.”
Victor pressed his fingers against his forehead.
Damon stared at him.
Something was wrong.
Victor had asked the correct questions.
Made the correct expressions.
But there was a distance in his eyes that bothered Damon.
Then Victor asked, “Can I see them?”
Detective Vega answered before the doctor could.
“Not yet.”
Victor turned.
“Excuse me?”
“We'll need you to stay available.”
“My daughters were just born.”
“And your wife accused you of attempted murder.”
Bernard stepped forward.
“My client has not been charged.”
“Not yet.”
The detective's phone rang.
She answered, listened, then looked directly at Victor.
“That may be changing.”
Victor's face tightened.
“What happened?”
“Officers searched the freezer.”
Bernard interrupted.
“Without a warrant?”
“Emergency scene connected to a possible homicide.”
“Attempted homicide.”
Vega stared at him.
“For now.”
Victor's jaw clenched.
The detective continued.
“They found the interior emergency-release cable had been cut.”
Silence.
Damon looked at Victor.
Bernard's expression remained controlled.
“Your point?”
“Someone didn't just lock her inside.”
Vega stepped closer.
“Someone made sure she couldn't get out.”
Victor shook his head.
“That warehouse is old. Equipment fails.”
“With wire cutters?”
Victor stopped talking.
At 5:10 a.m., police escorted Victor to an interview room.
They did not arrest him.
Not yet.
There was still no surveillance footage showing him locking Lena inside.
Victor had claimed he spent the evening at a private poker game at his friend Calvin Moore's lake house.
Four men confirmed it.
According to Victor, Lena had gone to the warehouse alone, perhaps accidentally locking herself inside when the door malfunctioned.
The prosecution would need more.
Victor knew it.
That was why he had arranged an alibi.
Damon also knew something else.
Victor's alibi was probably purchased.
At dawn, he stood outside the NICU looking through glass at two tiny babies connected to tubes and wires.
One wore a pink knitted cap.
The other a yellow one.
Their mother's babies.
Lena's daughters.
A nurse approached.
“Are you family?”
Damon almost said no.
Then he remembered Lena's hand clutching his shirt.
Don't leave.
“A friend.”
The nurse offered a sad smile.
“They're fighters.”
“Which one is having trouble?”
The nurse pointed toward the incubator with the yellow cap.
“That little one.”
Damon watched the baby's chest rise beneath the ventilator assistance.
Something inside him broke open.
He remembered Lena at seventeen, sitting on the hood of his first car, telling him she wanted three children someday.
He had laughed.
“You hate noise.”
“I'll like my own noise.”
“You don't even like sharing fries.”
“My children won't touch my fries.”
He had believed he would be there to see it.
Then Victor entered their lives.
Now Lena lay unconscious two floors below, and Damon was the only familiar person watching her premature daughters breathe.
At 8:30 a.m., Detective Vega found him there.
“Mr. Cross.”
Damon turned.
“We released Victor Carter.”
His face hardened.
“Why?”
“We don't have enough to hold him.”
“She identified him.”
“Her statement helps, but defense attorneys will attack its reliability.”
“The cut release cable?”
“Shows intent. Doesn't prove who cut it.”
“He had access.”
“So did employees, maintenance workers and contractors.”
Damon looked through the glass.
“You believe her.”
Vega hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Then prove it.”
“We're trying.”
Damon nodded slowly.
Then the detective said something unexpected.
“We also found an intercom system.”
Damon turned back.
“What?”
“The freezer has an internal speaker connected to the warehouse manager's office.”
“He spoke to her through it.”
“That's what she told you?”
“Yes.”
Vega's eyes sharpened.
“Then somebody may have used the office.”
“Cameras?”
“The recorder was removed.”
Damon laughed once without humor.
“Of course.”
“But the unit was network-enabled.”
Hope flickered.
“Cloud backup?”
“Possibly.”
“Then get it.”
“We are.”
Damon's phone rang.
Rick.
He answered.
“You need to come to the Cross Development office,” Rick said.
“Why?”
“The police searched the warehouse next door.”
“And?”
“They asked about our security cameras.”
Damon straightened.
Their building faced Carter Specialty's rear loading dock.
“You're telling me we might have Victor on camera?”
“Maybe.”
Damon left immediately.
An hour later, he stood in his security room with Detective Vega as a technician opened video from the previous evening.
11:04 p.m.
A black Mercedes entered Carter Specialty's rear lot.
Victor's car.
11:11.
Lena arrived.
11:27.
The warehouse loading lights switched off.
12:06.
A man walked toward the Mercedes.
The camera angle was distant.
His face wasn't visible.
But his height, clothing and gait looked like Victor.
The man entered the vehicle and drove away.
Vega leaned forward.
“Can you enhance it?”
The technician nodded.
“Some.”
Then a second monitor flashed.
Motion detected.
2:12 a.m.
A vehicle pulled into the lot.
Not police.
Not an ambulance.
A dark SUV.
The driver stepped out.
Damon stared.
“Who is that?”
The person wore a hood and gloves.
He walked toward the same warehouse where Lena had been trapped.
Four minutes later, he returned carrying something rectangular.
He placed it in the SUV.
Detective Vega whispered, “The missing recorder.”
Someone had returned to remove evidence.
Damon looked at the timestamp.
It happened only minutes before he had heard Lena screaming.
Meaning Victor hadn't merely planned to kill his wife.
He had sent someone back while she was still alive to erase the proof.
The detective's phone rang.
She answered.
Her expression changed instantly.
“What?”
She listened.
Then turned toward Damon.
“We have a problem.”
“What?”
“Victor Carter just arrived at the NICU.”
Damon's blood ran cold.
“He's allowed to visit his children,” Vega said.
Damon was already moving.
Because Lena was unconscious.
One newborn was barely breathing.
And Victor had already demonstrated exactly what he was willing to do for money.
By the time Damon reached the hospital, three nurses were gathered outside the NICU.
One incubator was empty.
The pink cap lay abandoned on the mattress.
Damon stopped dead.
“Where's the baby?”
Nobody answered quickly enough.
He grabbed the nearest nurse's arm.
“Where is Lena's daughter?”
A security alarm began screaming through the hospital.
May you like
And somewhere below them, Victor Carter was running.
---
