Chapter 12 - THE CHILD WHO WAS NEVER BURIED
12
The grave was empty.
For several seconds, Liana Graves could not understand what she was looking at.
Rain tapped softly against the black umbrellas gathered around the small cemetery plot outside Queens. Mud clung to the edges of Matteo Varric’s polished shoes. Two of his security men stood far enough away to give Liana privacy, but close enough that nobody could approach unnoticed.
In front of Liana was the tiny grave where she had stood twenty-two days earlier and watched a white casket disappear beneath the earth.
Except the casket was no longer there.
The cemetery workers had lifted it less than ten minutes ago under a court-authorized exhumation order arranged through one of Matteo’s attorneys.
When they opened the lid, there had been no baby inside.
Only folded hospital blankets.
And a weighted medical bag.
Liana stood frozen.
“No,” she whispered.
Matteo remained beside her.
He did not touch her.
Not yet.
He had learned during the previous week that grief made Liana unpredictable. Sometimes she wanted someone beside her. Sometimes even a hand on her shoulder made her flinch.
So he waited.
Liana finally turned toward him.
“I held that coffin.”
Her voice sounded strangely calm.
Matteo’s jaw tightened.
“I know.”
“I kissed the lid.”
“I know.”
“They told me my daughter was inside.”
“I know.”
Her face crumpled.
“Then where is she?”
That was the question that had changed everything.
Three days earlier, Liana had shown Matteo the tiny crescent-shaped mark hidden behind Nico’s right ear.
Her daughter, Eva, had been born with the same mark.
Not merely similar.
Identical.
A pale crescent with one small darker point at the center.
At first Matteo had insisted coincidence was possible.
Then Liana told him something else.
Eva had also suffered unexplained screaming episodes before her supposed death.
Doctors had called it reflux.
Then colic.
Then “neurological irritability.”
Exactly the same language used in Nico’s medical records.
Matteo had immediately ordered every document connected to Nico’s birth retrieved.
That was when the first impossible detail appeared.
Nico’s birth certificate listed Matteo’s late wife, Sofia, as his mother.
But hospital admission records showed that Sofia Varric had never entered that hospital on the night Nico was supposedly born.
There was no labor record.
No surgical record.
No neonatal observation file.
Nothing.
Nico had simply appeared in the hospital system twelve hours after his listed birth time.
Then Liana’s records were examined.
Eva Graves had supposedly died from sudden respiratory failure at eight months old.
Yet the attending physician’s signature belonged to a doctor who had been attending a medical conference in Toronto that day.
Someone had falsified the certificate.
Someone had fabricated the death.
And now the coffin was empty.
Liana suddenly turned and grabbed Matteo’s coat.
“She’s alive.”
Matteo looked down at her.
“We don’t know that yet.”
“Yes, we do.”
“Liana—”
“Why steal a dead baby?”
The question stopped him.
Liana’s fingers tightened around the fabric.
“Why replace her with blankets if she was already gone?”
Matteo said nothing.
Because she was right.
Someone had wanted Liana to believe Eva was dead.
Which meant Eva had almost certainly been alive when she disappeared.
Liana released Matteo and stepped backward.
Her entire body had begun trembling.
“I buried an empty box.”
Matteo moved closer.
This time, when he reached for her arms, she allowed him.
“I’m going to find her.”
Liana looked up.
“You can’t promise that.”
“No.”
His voice hardened.
“But I can promise whoever did this is going to regret leaving us enough evidence to start looking.”
The word us landed between them.
Neither acknowledged it.
Twenty minutes later, they were sitting inside Matteo’s armored SUV when his attorney, Dominic Vale, called.
Matteo answered immediately.
“What did you find?”
Dominic’s voice came through the speaker.
“The funeral home.”
Liana looked toward Matteo.
“What about it?”
“It shut down yesterday.”
Matteo’s expression went cold.
“Owner?”
“Missing.”
“Employees?”
“Most claim they don’t know anything.”
“Most?”
“One former embalming assistant left the company six months ago. Name is Maribel Santos.”
Dominic paused.
“She contacted my office fifteen minutes ago.”
Liana leaned forward.
“Why?”
“She said she saw the news about the exhumation order.”
Matteo’s eyes narrowed.
“What news?”
“It leaked.”
That was bad.
Very bad.
Matteo had deliberately kept the exhumation quiet.
Only six people knew.
If someone had discovered it, then someone was still watching.
“What did Santos say?” Matteo asked.
Dominic hesitated.
“She claims she remembers Eva Graves.”
Liana stopped breathing.
“Put her on.”
A moment later, another voice entered the call.
Female.
Nervous.
“Mr. Varric?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Maribel.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want trouble.”
“Then tell me the truth.”
Silence.
Then Maribel said, “The baby wasn’t dead.”
Liana covered her mouth.
Matteo’s entire body went still.
Maribel continued.
“The night they brought her in, I thought something was wrong because there was no body-release paperwork from the hospital.”
“What did you see?” Matteo asked.
“A little girl.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Liana made a broken sound beside him.
Maribel’s voice shook harder.
“She was sedated, but she was breathing.”
“Who brought her?”
“I don’t know his real name.”
“Describe him.”
“Tall. Gray hair. Expensive coat.”
Liana looked at Matteo.
Matteo already knew.
Only one man connected to the Varric family fit that description.
Dr. Elias Kane.
Sofia’s private physician.
The same man who had supervised Nico’s medical care for nine months.
The same man who repeatedly told Matteo that Nico’s crying was neurological.
The same man who had refused to allow Matteo to obtain an outside pediatric specialist until three weeks earlier.
Matteo’s eyes became dangerous.
“What happened to Eva?”
Maribel inhaled.
“They put another coffin into the hearse.”
“Where did they take the baby?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maribel.”
“I swear.”
Then she added something.
“But the doctor kept saying one thing.”
Matteo waited.
“What?”
Maribel lowered her voice.
“He kept saying, ‘Subject B survived the transfer.’”
Liana stared at the phone.
Subject B.
Not Eva.
Not a child.
A subject.
Matteo asked, “Did he say anything else?”
“Yes.”
“He said the Varric boy was Subject A.”
Silence filled the SUV.
Nico.
Subject A.
Eva.
Subject B.
Two babies.
Two falsified medical histories.
Two children experiencing the same unexplained pain.
Matteo’s hands curled into fists.
This was no kidnapping.
It was something organized.
Something deliberate.
Something that had been happening beneath his roof.
“Where are you?” Matteo asked.
Maribel gave an address in Brooklyn.
“Stay there.”
“No.”
Her answer came instantly.
“I’m leaving.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody followed me home last night.”
Matteo looked toward his driver.
“Move.”
The SUV pulled away from the cemetery.
“Maribel,” Matteo said, “lock every door.”
“I already did.”
“Stay away from windows.”
A sound came through the phone.
Maribel suddenly stopped speaking.
Matteo heard movement.
“What happened?”
Nothing.
“Maribel?”
Liana leaned toward the phone.
“Maribel?”
Then came a faint sound.
Three knocks.
Maribel whispered, “Someone’s at the door.”
Matteo’s driver accelerated.
“Do not open it.”
Another three knocks.
Then a man’s voice through the door.
“Ms. Santos?”
Maribel began breathing quickly.
Matteo said, “Go to a room you can lock.”
“I’m trying.”
The man outside spoke again.
“Ms. Santos, I’m from Dr. Kane’s office.”
Liana turned white.
Matteo’s voice became deadly calm.
“Maribel, run.”
A crash exploded through the phone.
Maribel screamed.
The call ended.
“Faster!” Matteo shouted.
The vehicle surged forward.
Fourteen minutes later, they reached the apartment.
The front door was broken.
Matteo entered first despite his men trying to stop him.
“Maribel!”
No answer.
Furniture had been overturned.
A lamp shattered across the floor.
Liana stepped inside behind him.
Then she saw blood.
Not much.
A narrow streak leading toward the kitchen.
Matteo followed it.
Nobody was there.
Only an open back window.
On the kitchen floor sat Maribel’s phone.
And beside it—
a photograph.
Matteo picked it up.
His expression changed instantly.
Liana took it from him.
The photograph showed a nursery.
Two babies were lying side by side beneath white blankets.
One was unmistakably Nico.
The other was a little girl.
Behind her right ear was a pale crescent-shaped birthmark.
Liana’s knees almost gave way.
“Eva.”
But Matteo was staring at something else.
In the far corner of the photograph stood a woman watching both infants.
A woman who had supposedly died ten months earlier.
His wife.
May you like
Sofia Varric.
Alive.
