Chapter 4 - The Wild Chase to Lambert-St. Louis“Move, move, move!” Marshal Vance barked into his shoulder radio, instantly activating a tactical code-red.
The security guards in our room swarmed outward, clearing the hallway. Dr. Harrison rushed to my bedside, trying to steady my shaking hands. “Mrs. Miller, you need to stay here. You’ve just given birth, your stitches are strained—”
“Like hell I am staying here!” I snapped, handing Addison safely to my weeping mother, who cradled the baby fiercely against her chest. “My other daughter is on a plane right now with a criminal syndicate. If you think a few stitches are going to keep me in this bed, you don't know me at all.”
Ethan scrambled up from the floor, wiping his tear-stained face. “Maya, let me come. Let me drive you. Let me make this right—!”
“You want to make this right?” I turned on him, my eyes blazing with a fury that could melt steel. “You stay right here, cooperate with the federal marshals, and pray to whatever God you believe in that my baby girl comes back alive. Because if she doesn't, I will personally see to it that you spend the rest of your life in a federal penitentiary right beside Veronica.”
Without waiting for his answer, I ripped the IV needle out of the back of my hand, ignoring the burst of warm blood staining my skin, and sprinted out of the postpartum room.
My bare feet slapped against the cold hospital corridors. Nurses and doctors jumped out of my way as I flew past the nurses' station, ignoring the alarms ringing from my disconnected monitors.
Outside St. Mary’s emergency entrance, the St. Louis afternoon sky was heavy, dark, and threatening a violent Missouri thunderstorm. Marshal Vance’s black federal SUV was idling at the curb, its lights flashing in a blinding rhythm of red and blue.
“Get in the back!” Marshal Vance yelled, holding the door open for me as federal agents jumped into the front seats.
I vaulted into the vehicle. The engine roared to life, and the SUV fishtailed onto Grand Boulevard, burning rubber as it accelerated toward the interstate.
“Status update!” Marshal Vance shouted into his radio as we wove aggressively through mid-afternoon traffic, dodging semi-trucks and delivery vans.
“Target’s vehicle just breached the security gate at St. Louis Downtown Airport,” a computerized dispatch voice crackled through the comms. “Private jet clearance has been locked down by FAA emergency override, but the Gulfstream is taxiing to the active runway right now!”
“Step on it!” I screamed, leaning over the center console to grip the marshal’s seatbelt. “She’s going to take off with my baby!”
“We’re pushing ninety, ma'am, holding on for dear life!” the driver yelled, slamming on the horn as a delivery truck cut us off.
My mind raced a million miles an hour. How had Veronica pulled this off? How did she know I was having twins when the doctors didn't? And most importantly... why did Ethan look so violently, irrationally paranoid the exact second he held our first baby?
Suddenly, a terrifying thought struck me like a lightning bolt.
I reached into the pocket of my hospital robe and pulled out my smartphone, which had been buzzing with missed notifications. I unlocked it with a shaking thumb and opened our shared family cloud photo album.
I scrolled back through months of photos of Ethan... and stopped dead on a selfie he had taken at a fertility clinic downtown six months before we conceived.
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In the background of the photo, sitting in the waiting room chair next to an old man with striking dark features, was a woman with blonde hair, laughing brightly.
A woman who looked exactly, impossibly, like Veronica Vance.
