I nodded. “What happened?”
“He says the warehouse shooter panicked. Young guy. Probably hired without knowing what he was walking into.”
“Police?”
“They took statements. Daniel kept it simple.”
“Make sure his family knows he’s all right.”
Marcus sat in the chair across from me.
He looked at the operating-room doors, then back at me.
“That her?”
“Yes.”
He did not ask who.
Everyone close to me knew Emma’s name.
Even after I forbade them from saying it.
Marcus leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “The baby yours?”
“Yes.”
The word came out before doubt could reach it.
I did not need a test.
I did not need dates or explanations.
Emma’s face had told me.
The tear on her cheek had told me.
Marcus glanced down the empty hallway. “You want me to find out how she got here?”
“I want everything.”
“Quietly?”
“Yes.”
He rose.
“Marcus.”
He stopped.
“Find out where she’s been for the last eight months. Who she spoke to. Who paid her bills. Who brought her here. And pull every record we have on the evidence Brooke gave me.”
He looked at me more closely.
“You think it was false?”
“I think I never checked.”
That admission tasted bitter.
Marcus nodded once. “I’ll call you.”
After he left, I stayed in the same chair until the sky outside the windows began to turn gray.
At six twelve in the morning, a surgeon entered the waiting room.
She was in her fifties, with tired eyes and a surgical cap tucked into one hand.
“Mr. Moretti?”
I stood so quickly the chair struck the wall.
“I’m Dr. Shah. I operated on Ms. Walker.”
“How is she?”
“Alive.”
I closed my eyes.
For a moment, that was enough.
Then I remembered the second heartbeat.
“The baby?”
Dr. Shah’s expression softened.
“Your daughter was delivered by emergency cesarean section. She weighs three pounds, eleven ounces. She’s in the neonatal intensive care unit.”
My daughter.
The words opened something inside me I had spent years sealing shut.
“Is she all right?”
“She was deprived of oxygen briefly, but she responded well. She’s premature and will need respiratory support and close monitoring. Right now, she’s stable.”
“And Emma?”
“Ms. Walker is critically ill. She has a severe infection that entered her bloodstream. We controlled the source during surgery, but septic shock places enormous strain on the organs. She’s on a ventilator, and the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours are important.”
“What caused the infection?”
“We’re still evaluating that. It appears she had been ill for several days before coming in.”
“Why didn’t she seek help?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“Can I see her?”
“Not yet.”
“My daughter?”
Dr. Shah studied me. “Are you listed as the father?”
“I don’t know.”
The honesty of it humiliated me.
“I didn’t know about the pregnancy until last night.”
Her expression remained professional, but something in her eyes changed.
Not judgment exactly.
Recognition, perhaps, of another complicated family she had no time to untangle.
“A nurse from the NICU will speak with you,” she said. “They’ll explain what you can and cannot do.”
Before she turned away, I asked, “Was Emma conscious before surgery?”
“Briefly.”
“Did she say anything?”
Dr. Shah hesitated.
“She asked us to save the baby.”
“Nothing else?”
“She said a name.”
My breath caught. “Mine?”
“No.”
The doctor’s answer was gentle.
“She said, ‘Find Claire.’”
Claire.
I knew no Claire.
“Did she give a last name?”
“No. She lost consciousness before we could ask.”
The surgeon left me standing in the middle of the waiting room with a stranger’s name echoing in my head.
Find Claire.
Not Vincent.
Not help me.
Not tell him the truth.
Find Claire.
A nurse led me to the neonatal intensive care unit shortly after seven.
Before I entered, she showed me how to wash my hands and put on a disposable gown. She spoke calmly, explaining tubes, monitors, oxygen levels, and feeding schedules.
I understood none of it.
Numbers had always made sense to me when they belonged to bank accounts, contracts, shipments, and debts. Here, every number seemed connected to a breath.
The room was dim and warm.
Rows of incubators stood beneath low lights. Machines hummed softly. Nurses moved between them with a careful quiet that felt almost sacred.
My daughter was in the third incubator.
For several seconds, I could not step closer.
She was impossibly small.
A soft cap covered her head. A thin breathing tube rested beneath her nose, and wires disappeared beneath a blanket decorated with yellow stars.
Her hand was no larger than two joints of my finger.
I stared at her chest, watching it rise.
Fall.
Rise again.
“This is your baby,” the nurse said.
I looked at the identification card attached to the incubator.
BABY WALKER.
No first name.
No father listed.
“What is she called?” I asked.
“Her mother didn’t have an opportunity to complete any forms.”
Baby Walker.
My daughter had entered the world without a name because I had not been there to give her one.
The nurse opened a small panel on the side of the incubator.
“You can touch her gently.”
I hesitated.
I had held weapons without fear. Signed orders that changed hundreds of lives. Walked into rooms where everyone else was waiting to see whether I would be calm or cruel.
But I was afraid to touch my own child.
My hand looked enormous beside her.
I placed one finger against her palm.
Her fingers moved.
