Chapter 2: Silent
The hospital lights were too bright.
Maya drifted in and out of consciousness as they wheeled her into surgery. She heard voices, the clatter of instruments, someone counting. Then the pressure in her abdomen changed, and she knew they had taken the baby out.
She tried to ask if Lily was okay, but her mouth wouldn’t work.
When she woke again, she was in a recovery room. Her body felt hollow and wrong. A nurse sat beside the bed, monitoring machines that beeped steadily.
“Where is my daughter?” Maya whispered.
The nurse’s face softened. “She’s in the NICU. She’s small, but she’s fighting.”
Maya closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she heard voices outside the half-open door.
Eric’s voice. And Diane’s.
“…none of this would have happened if she hadn’t made a scene,” Eric was saying. “She embarrassed everyone.”
Diane’s voice was lower, almost businesslike. “Did you transfer the rest?”
“Tomorrow,” Eric answered. “I’ll move it first thing in the morning before she wakes up enough to notice.”
They thought she was unconscious.
Maya lay perfectly still, staring at the ceiling. The cold feeling from the pool had not left her. It had simply moved deeper, settling somewhere behind her ribs.
She was not merely a consultant.
She was a forensic accountant. She spent her days following money trails that people tried very hard to hide. She knew how to find what others wanted buried.
From this hospital bed, still bleeding, still missing pieces of herself, Maya began to think.
They had taken the money meant for their daughter’s safe arrival.
May you like
Now they were planning to take more.
She turned her head toward the door and listened.
