Chapter 3 - THE ESCAPE
My hands were steady on the steering wheel, though every nerve ending in my body felt like it was on fire.
In the back seat of my SUV, securely buckled into a brand-new rear-facing car seat I had purchased from the hospital medical supply store on my way out the door, the baby slept quietly. Her pink cap had fallen off, revealing a tuft of fine, dark brown hair.
I drove aimlessly for an hour through the pouring rain, watching my rearview mirror constantly to see if Ethan or Eleanor’s security detail was following me.
My phone on the dashboard was exploding.
Thirty-seven missed calls from Ethan.
Twelve missed calls from my mother-in-law.
Five text messages from my own father.
I pulled into the parking lot of a quiet diner off the interstate, killed the engine, and finally picked up my phone. I opened the text messages from my father, Arthur Morgan.
Arthur: Rachel, where are you?! Ethan's father called me. He said you've had a nervous breakdown at the hospital and took a baby that doesn't belong to you! They are threatening to freeze our company's credit line if you don't return to the Vale estate immediately!
I stared at the screen, a bitter laugh escaping my throat. Of course. The Vales were already controlling the narrative. They were painting me as the hysterical, unhinged wife who lost her mind over fertility struggles and stole a child.
I called my father back. He picked up on the first ring.
"Rachel!" my father shouted into the receiver. "Thank God! Where are you? The Vales are going crazy! Ethan is on his way to your apartment with their private legal team!"
"Dad," I said, my voice completely devoid of emotion. "Listen to me very carefully. Do not go to the office. Do not sign anything Ethan's father sends you. And do not tell them you're talking to me."
"Rachel, what is going on?" my father asked, his voice shaking with panic. "Ethan said you took a surrogate child without permission!"
"Ethan lied to us for four years, Dad," I said, looking back at the sleeping baby. "He and his mother used my name to execute a fraudulent surrogacy using his dead fiancé's frozen embryos. They forged my signature on legal adoption papers so they could use the child as a corporate tax write-off and keep me trapped in the marriage."
Dead silence fell over the line. My father was a straightforward, hard-working businessman who had built a mid-sized logistics company from scratch. He had trusted Ethan Vale implicitly.
"They... they did what?" my father whispered, the anger beginning to seep into his tone.
"They forged my name," I repeated. "And right now, legally, I am listed as this child's primary mother on the hospital birth registration. If I give her back to Eleanor, they will alter the records, erase my name, and spin a story that I'm mentally incapacitated so they can take everything from our family."
"Where are you right now?" my father asked immediately.
"I'm at a diner off Route 9," I said. "I need a safe place to stay. Somewhere Eleanor Vale's lawyers can't track through credit card transactions or GPS."
"Go to the old cabin in Pine Ridge," my father instructed without a second of hesitation. "The deed is in your late grandmother's name. It's not listed under the Morgan Logistics asset portfolio. The Vales don't know it exists. I will transfer ten thousand dollars in cash from my personal account to a private debit card and meet you there in two hours."
"Dad... if you help me, Eleanor will ruin Morgan Logistics," I warned him.
"Let her try," my father spat out with a ferocity I hadn't heard in years. "They hurt my daughter. They treated you like an incubator and a scapegoat. I don't care if I have to burn my company to the ground, Rachel. Nobody destroys my family and gets away with it."
Tears pricked my eyes—not of sadness, but of profound relief. "Thank you, Dad."
"I'll bring supplies for the baby," he added softly. "What's her name, Rachel?"
I looked through the glass window of the SUV into the back seat. The tiny girl had stretched her little arm out of her swaddle, her fingers curling into a miniature fist.
"I don't know yet," I whispered. "Her hospital tag says Baby Girl Morgan."
"Then she's a Morgan," my father said firmly. "I'll see you in two hours."
I hung up the phone, stepped out of the vehicle into the rain, opened the back door, and checked on the sleeping child. I gently adjusted her blanket, touching her unbelievably soft cheek with my index finger.
"They think you're just a contract," I whispered to her as the rain poured over the roof of the car. "They think you're a weapon to keep me quiet. But they don't know who they're dealing with."
My phone buzzed again. A single text message from Ethan.
Ethan: Rachel, please don't do this. My mother called the district attorney. If you don't bring the baby back by midnight, they are filing kidnapping charges against you. You can't win against my family. Please come home.
May you like
I looked at the message for three seconds. Then I pulled out the SIM card from my phone, snapped it in half with my thumb, and threw the pieces into a storm drain beside my car.
I got back into the driver's seat, shifted into drive, and headed north toward Pine Ridge.
