CHAPTER 16 : THE SECOND GABRIEL
Nathan stared at the pink hospital bracelet in his hand.
BABY GIRL WHITMORE.
Inside, beneath the printed letters, someone had written:
EVELYN SHAW.
The ink was still wet.
Nathan looked down the empty hallway. There was no sound of footsteps, no elevator bell, no closing door.
The other Gabriel had vanished as if the building had swallowed him.
Behind Nathan, Claire struggled to rise from the hospital bed.
“Bring me the bracelet.”
“You need to lie down.”
“Bring it to me.”
Nathan returned to the room and placed it in her hand.
Claire examined the black writing.
“This isn’t a new name,” she whispered.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a patient reference.”
Gabriel moved closer.
Claire turned the bracelet over.
“Some private clinics write the mother’s name inside the infant band before official registration.”
Evelyn’s breathing changed.
Nathan noticed immediately.
“You recognize this.”
Evelyn shook her head too quickly.
Nathan crouched beside her wheelchair.
“What happened at the clinic thirty-eight years ago?”
Before she could answer, the lights went out.
The room fell into darkness.
Claire gasped.
A second later, the emergency lights flashed red.
Someone entered through the side door.
Nathan saw the white uniform first.
A nurse.
She moved toward Claire with a syringe already raised.
Nathan lunged across the room and seized her wrist.
The nurse drove her knee into his injured ribs.
Pain tore through him, but he held on.
Gabriel grabbed the woman from behind.
She twisted free with frightening precision, slammed an elbow into his throat, and ran into the hallway.
Nathan chased her as far as the emergency stairwell.
By the time he forced open the metal door, she was gone.
Only the syringe remained on the floor.
A white label was wrapped around it.
PHASE TWO.
When Nathan returned, Claire was gripping the bed rail.
“They weren’t trying to move me,” she said.
“They were trying to silence you.”
Hospital security arrived minutes later.
The administrator pulled up the surveillance system.
At first, the footage showed only ordinary activity: nurses, orderlies, guards and patients.
Then the administrator stopped the video.
Two men were visible on the screen.
Both had dark hair.
Both wore the same jacket.
Both had Gabriel’s face.
One stood beside Evelyn’s wheelchair.
The other entered the maternity corridor carrying Claire’s daughter beneath a white blanket.
The timestamp showed both men inside the hospital at exactly the same moment.
Gabriel stared at the screen.
“I’ve never seen him before.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
Nathan turned toward her.
“That’s not true.”
The administrator enlarged the image of the man carrying the baby.
A small symbol had been tattooed behind his left ear.
A black number.
Three.
Evelyn began to cry.
Nathan faced her.
“Who is he?”
Her answer was almost inaudible.
“The son they told me had died.”
No one spoke.
The administrator switched to another camera.
The false Gabriel carried the baby through a private ambulance entrance.
A woman with Vanessa’s face held the door open.
Before entering the ambulance, she looked directly toward the security camera.
Then she raised one finger to her lips.
The vehicle registration appeared briefly on-screen.
Nathan wrote it down.
The plate belonged to a medical organization that had closed thirty-eight years earlier.
ST. ORLA MATERNITY HOME.
May you like
Claire’s face went white.
“That name was on my original birth certificate.”
