Chapter 5
"That's insane! That is a sick, twisted joke!" I screamed, lunging forward past Mark to grab the card from Elena’s trembling fingers.
My eyes scanned the brutal, typed lines over and over again. 'The baby in the crib isn't the one you brought home from the hospital.' It made no physical, biological sense. I had given birth to Leo in Mercy General Hospital six months ago. I had held him through every fever, every sleepless night, every milestone. His little button nose, the faint birthmark behind his left ear shaped like a tiny crescent moon—I knew every inch of his body.
"Clara, put the card down," Mark ordered, his voice suddenly terrifyingly calm, stripped of all emotion. He turned around slowly, his gaze fixed not on me, but on the wooden crib where little Leo lay wrapped in his star-patterned onesie.
"Mark, you don't actually believe this garbage, do you?" I pleaded, grabbing the sleeve of his gray t-shirt. "Look at him! Look at his face! He has your chin and my eyes. How could anyone swap our baby out from under our noses without us noticing?"
"Did we notice anything?" Mark whispered, his voice cracking as he took a hesitant step toward the crib. "We’ve both been exhausted. You've been sleeping in the guest room. I've been working late shifts at the warehouse. Elena has been coming over every single afternoon to watch him while we ran errands..."
Elena bristled instantly, stepping between Mark and the crib with defensive fury. "Are you implying what I think you're implying, Mark? You think I had something to do with switching your child? I practically raised you after your father left, and now you're pointing fingers at your own mother?"
"I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, Ma," Mark said, rubbing his temples in utter exhaustion. "I just... I don't know what's real anymore. First the forged custody papers, then the phone texts, now a ransom note taped to a locked second-story window?"
"Let's prove it right now," I said, my voice cutting through their bickering with desperate clarity. I stepped up to the wooden crib, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Leo has a distinct medical chart. He has a very specific blood type—O-negative, just like mine, because of my rare condition. We can test his blood right now at the emergency room."
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Mark looked at me, a glimmer of hope breaking through his paralyzed state. "Okay. Let's go. Right now. Grab his diaper bag."
Before I could turn toward the armoire, the overhead light flickered violently and died, plunging the nursery into pitch-black darkness, accompanied by a heavy metallic click as the bedroom door locked itself from the outside.
