Chapter 6 - The Other BabyMatteo did not remember crossing the room.
Every time, the same woman carried Nico through the east hallway at 2:13 a.m.
She wore black scrubs.
Surgical mask.
Cap.
Medium height.
Slim build.
Police had never identified her.
Now Elena’s letter claimed she had been dead before the kidnapping happened.
“How?” Liana asked.
Matteo stared at the frozen frame.
“That’s what we’re finding out.”
Victor enlarged the image.
“The timestamp could have been altered.”
Matteo shook his head.
“You checked it.”
“I checked the server.”
“Difference?”
Victor looked irritated with himself.
“I never checked whether this footage came from that server.”
Liana leaned closer.
“What?”
Victor opened the file data.
Then cursed.
“This was inserted.”
“When?”
“Between 2:19 and 2:26 a.m.”
Matteo’s voice turned lethal.
“After Nico was taken.”
“Yes.”
“So we never saw the real kidnapper.”
“No.”
Liana looked at Elena’s recorder.
“What’s on that?”
Matteo pressed play.
Static.
Then Elena’s voice filled the room.
Matteo closed his eyes.
He had not heard it since her funeral.
“If you’re listening to this, I failed.”
Liana looked away, giving him privacy he did not ask for.
Elena continued.
“Matteo, I need you to forgive me for keeping this from you. I did it because the moment you knew, you would go to war. And these people survive wars.”
Victor sat slowly.
“They survive by becoming the people who investigate them.”
Elena’s voice cracked.
“I found judges, police officers, fertility doctors, private security contractors, hospital administrators. They call themselves the Meridian Circle.”
Victor whispered, “Never heard of it.”
“You weren’t supposed to,” Elena continued.
Matteo stared at the recorder.
“The woman in the footage is Dr. Mara Kessler. She worked at Bellrose. She died four years ago.”
Victor searched.
Public obituary.
Car accident.
Age forty-one.
Liana whispered, “Fake footage.”
Elena continued.
“If they ever take Nico, they may not be trying to keep him. They may be trying to alter something.”
Matteo looked at the bruise behind Nico’s ear.
“Blood chemistry?” Victor asked.
“DNA?” Liana said.
The recording continued.
“I believe Bethany Graves discovered a method they use on infants to temporarily modify medical markers—blood values, hormones, metabolic signatures. Enough to make one child resemble another in screening tests.”
Victor stared.
“Why?”
Elena answered almost as if she had heard him.
“Because sometimes a baby doesn’t need to disappear forever. Sometimes it only needs to pass as somebody else for one night.”
The recording ended.
Silence.
Matteo said, “We test Nico again.”
Liana nodded.
“Against what?”
Matteo looked at Victor.
“Everything.”
They returned to the estate before dawn.
A private physician arrived.
Blood was drawn.
Nico cried.
Liana held him.
Matteo hated how natural it looked.
At 6:20 a.m., Victor received another message.
His expression changed.
“What?”
“The guard who disappeared the kidnapping night.”
“Samuel Orr.”
“Yes.”
“What about him?”
“He used his passport yesterday.”
“Where?”
“Detroit.”
Matteo grabbed his jacket.
Victor shook his head.
“Too late. Camera footage shows him boarding a flight to Montreal.”
“Then stop the plane.”
“It landed two hours ago.”
Matteo swore.
Liana watched the computer screen.
“Can you enlarge that?”
Security footage showed Samuel walking through the terminal.
Cap.
Jacket.
Duffel bag.
Victor zoomed.
Liana pointed.
“His wrist.”
A crescent symbol.
Tattooed.
Crossed by a vertical line.
The Meridian Circle.
Matteo looked at Victor.
“You recruited him.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“Five years ago.”
“Who recommended him?”
Victor went silent.
“Who?”
“Elena.”
Matteo stared.
Victor added quickly, “She said he protected her during an incident downtown.”
“What incident?”
“She never explained.”
Matteo looked toward the hallway where Rosa waited under guard.
His wife had filled his home with secrets.
One of them had taken his son.
Then the doctor entered.
His face was grim.
“Mr. Varric.”
Matteo stood.
“What?”
“We found something in Nico’s blood.”
“What?”
“A synthetic peptide.”
Liana looked terrified.
“Is he sick?”
“No. But this compound is designed to bind to certain proteins temporarily.”
Victor asked, “Could it interfere with a paternity test?”
The doctor paused.
“Yes.”
Matteo’s stomach dropped.
“For how long?”
“Hours. Maybe a day.”
“So somebody drugged my son to make his genetic screening unreliable?”
“Potentially.”
Matteo thought of Elena’s warning.
One child resembling another.
One night.
Then the doctor said something worse.
“There’s more.”
He held out a report.
“We found two separate sets of puncture marks.”
Matteo stared at Nico.
“One from the kidnapping?”
“No.”
The doctor pointed behind Nico’s ear.
“That one is older.”
“How old?”
“Approximately six months.”
The room went silent.
Six months.
The week Elena died.
Liana looked at Matteo.
“Someone had done this before.”
Matteo’s voice barely worked.
“To my son?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Nobody knew.
Then Rosa appeared at the doorway.
One guard behind her.
She looked at the test report and began shaking.
“I knew this would happen.”
Matteo turned.
“You knew?”
“Elena made me promise.”
Matteo marched toward her.
“Another promise?”
“She was trying to keep Nico alive!”
“By hiding the fact that somebody drugged him?”
Rosa cried.
“That wasn’t Nico.”
The words stopped the room.
Matteo stared at her.
“What did you say?”
Rosa covered her mouth.
Too late.
Matteo stepped closer.
“Rosa.”
She was sobbing now.
“What wasn’t Nico?”
“The baby in the nursery that night.”
Matteo could hear his heartbeat.
“Which night?”
“The night Elena died.”
Matteo looked at his son.
May you like
Rosa whispered:
“For six hours, your child was gone.”
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