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  David nods, rubbing his chin pensively. “I don’t think an investigation could be more special. Contact him, but suggest he bring one of his unit investigators. I’ll speak to Dr. Scott, Metro University Healthcare’s chief of staff, and inform her of the situation. We know you delivered a son, so the switch must’ve been at MUMC sometime after birth but before you went home.”

  A sense of betrayal moves over me. The very hospital system I’m depending on to save my son has now turned into one that could very well be the enemy. Metro University is a large sprawling campus that was founded over a hundred years ago. It not only provides a top-notch education in the medical field, but over the years, it has expanded to include a series of hospitals that are among the highest ranked in Georgia. This includes MUP, where Cameron is now, and its adjacent building, MUMC, where he was born.

  I push that emotion away for the moment and attempt to pull myself together even tighter. I’m going to have to dig deeper than ever before to find my strength. I focus my thoughts on Cameron, sitting here in this hospital, watching cartoons with Amelia. His needs outweigh my own. He’s the most important thing in my world, and he needs me to be his mother.

  A mother who will do what it takes to save his life.

  Pulling my cell from my pocket, I place a call to my dad. He answers almost immediately. “Hey, Easy. How’s our little man doing today?”

  I hesitate for one second before sucking it up and doing what has to be done. “Dad, I need you and Mom to come to the hospital as soon as you can get here.” I take a deep breath. “I also need you to bring one of your unit investigators.”

  “What’s going on, honey?” When I don’t respond right away, he continues. “Easy, why would I need an investigator?”

  “Please, Dad. I need you to do this. I’ll explain everything when you get here. Just hurry.” My voice cracks.

  “I’ll be there in ten.” The steeliness of his voice brings about a calm I desperately need right now. Agent Wilder is on the job.

  “Thank you.” I end the call with a new feeling overtaking my soul.

  Optimism.

  If this is what I have to do to give my son the best possible chance at a healthy, happy life, then so be it. He’ll never not be my son. I make that vow to myself, right now in this very second. But who am I kidding? I have another son out there somewhere, one I carried inside my body for nine months. I want to find him; I need to find him and the family who’s raising him. Not just for Cam’s health, but for my own sanity as well.

  “Easy,” David calls, gaining my attention.

  I turn to him. “Dad says he’ll be here in ten.”

  He nods. “Good. I just got off the phone with Dr. Scott. She’s very shocked at the situation and wants us to meet her in her office in an hour. She’s going to access the files from Cam’s birth date and see what she can uncover.”

  I start thinking like a person scorned. Scorned by the very hospital I’m standing in. The very same one my son is depending on. “Are you sure we can trust her to be honest and forthcoming? To care more about me and my son’s future than that of this hospital system?”

  He glances around the room, before meeting my eyes again. “I don’t know for sure, Easy. She’s an outstanding chief of staff, but it is her job to work in the best interest of Metro University.”

  I roll my eyes. “Well, surely the best interest of this hospital is to find out what happened, and do whatever they can to facilitate a meeting between myself and the other family.” I raise a brow. “Unless they want to be sued for their incompetence.”

  He chuckles. “Atta girl.” Then he walks over to stand in front of me. “We will get through this. I promise. Together, as a family.”

  I reach around and hug him. Taking from him all the support he’s offering. “As a family,” I whisper.

  My cell rings, breaking us out of our moment. “Hey, Dad. We’re in Dr. Sen’s office. Can you make your way up here? Oh, and have Mom call Amelia and let her know I need her to stay with Cam a while longer.”

  “Sure, honey. We’ll be up shortly.” I end the call and prepare myself for the conversation to come.

  When they arrive, Dad introduces us to Investigator Joel Masters. I ask everyone to sit, but Investigator Masters chooses to remain standing, pulling a notepad from his front pocket. I make sure both he and my dad understand this is a police matter, but my father is here strictly as family.

  When everyone is settled and ready to listen, I ask David to explain. He takes a seat on the corner of Dr. Sen’s desk and begins the tale. He goes all the way back to the blood samples my family and I donated. They sit there nodding along as he describes the process of determining a match. When he gets to the part where none of our results resembles a familial match, their faces begin looking confused.

  He tells them a much more detailed account than he was able to give me, amid his ramblings and sorrow over having to deliver the news at all. It seems that when none of our results showed any similarities, the lab technician became confused. Our tests were reading as if we were random strangers. The tech became suspicious and ran a DNA test between Cameron’s sample and mine.

  When he finishes explaining the results of the DNA test to my parents, my Mom interrupts his explanation. “What does this mean, David?”

  He glances at me and at my nod, he answers her question. “Melissa, it means that Cameron is not Easy’s biological son.”

  She gasps. “What? How is that possible?”

  David heaves a deep sigh. “It can only mean one thing. There must’ve been a switch between the time of his birth and when Easy took him home.”

  “So you mean to tell me,” my dad starts, his voice hard and even, “that someone gave my daughter the wrong baby?”

  “Harold,” David says, attempting to interject calm. My dad’s jaw is tight, and his arms are crossed over his chest. “I understand this must be a shock, believe me, it was for me too. But we must stay focused. We can’t change what happened, but we can find that family and open a whole new world of possibilities for Cameron.”

  My father’s jaw ticks as he works through the impossible position we all find ourselves in. Cam’s diagnosis was a hard blow, but we were determined, and now a whole new set of almost unbelievable circumstances have been dumped into our laps. However, there’s no way we can consider anything but Cameron. His needs outweigh any resentment, anger or frustrations we feel.

  “Daddy,” I say softly, wrapping my arm around his shoulder. “I know this is hard to hear, but it doesn’t make Cam any less ours.”

  His eyes soften, and he finally gives me a nod. “You’re right, sweetie. I’ll try to bury the cop and just be a father and a grandfather, though it’s going to be hard.”

  “Love you,” I whisper as I give him a hug. Then I turn back to David. “Please continue.”

  My mom cries as David finishes his account of what we know so far and what our next move is going to be. When he’s finished, she stands and crosses over to me, grabbing me in the fiercest hug imaginable. It’s my turn to comfort her. I shush and hug her until she’s spent. Slowly she pulls back, and the acceptance is clear.

  Time to move forward.

  Huddling around my dad, we offer comfort. He’s a strong man and a principled officer of the law, but right now, he’s just a person who’s been delivered a devastating blow. Quiet words of assurance are passed between us as we accept what is and decide how to proceed.

  When my mother and I move away, my father clears his throat. “Investigator Masters.”

  “Sir?”

  “I want you on this case full force. You’ll formally report to the Assistant Agent in Charge, but I want to know how this happened. You got that?” my dad orders, standing and jabbing a finger his way. “You’ll go to this meeting with Easy and David and put the pressure on the chief of staff. I want answers!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  His eyes find mine. “Are you going to be okay for this meeting, honey?”
>
  I give him a determined nod. “I have to be.”

  He moves in and gives me a bone-crushing hug before turning to Mom. “I’m going to head back to the office and brief my assistant. What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going down to visit with Cam and Amelia.” She turns to me. “I’ll see you when you get done, okay?”

  After a tight hug from my mom, they leave me to go to the meeting with Dr. Scott. Outwardly, I appear calm and collected, but inside I’m a mess. I’m torn between betrayal and anger. It’s hard to grasp the situation entirely, but then to consider this health care system’s role in it leaves me a with a bitter taste in my mouth.

  David’s soft voice breaks into my thoughts. “Are you ready to walk over to MUMC? Her office is housed in that building.”

  With warring emotions churning in my gut, I nod. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  The three of us are quiet on the walk over, taking in the warm late spring afternoon. When we arrive on the fifth floor, Dr. Scott’s secretary sends us straight to her office.

  David knocks lightly, then opens the door, leading us inside. “Dr. Scott, thank you for meeting with us so soon,” he says, as he walks over and shakes her hand. “Allow me to introduce you to Easy Wilder.” He points to me and then to Joel. “And this is Investigator Masters.”

  Her face, which was open and smiling, goes to blank and closed off with the introduction of Joel. “Hello, pleased to meet you both. Won’t you all have a seat,” she says stiffly, motioning to the chairs across from her desk.

  Once everyone is seated, David opens the conversation. “Katherine, I’m sorry to have to be the one to bring this to your attention. Believe me, we’d much rather it never happened.”

  “I can’t make that claim,” I speak up, cutting my eyes to David. “Had it never happened, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to love Cameron. I would never wish that not be the case.” I return my attention to Dr. Scott. “I do, however, have another son out there and I must find him. I need to find him, and Cameron needs to find his blood relatives.”

  Dr. Scott clears her throat and nods. “I understand, Miss Wilder, but you do understand that the other child out there”—she waves her hand—“has a family that raised him and thinks of him as his own, right?”

  I have to stop and let those words sink into my brain. My child, the son I carried, has another set of people he knows as his mom and dad. He doesn’t even know I exist. It’s a crushing blow, one I havn’t considered. And those parents, they’re Cam’s real parents, and he needs them to possibly save his life. Someone else carried him for nine months. The realization is both unsettling and terrifying.

  I swallow and nod. “I do.”

  “Okay, with that being said, I did look through hospital records for the day of Cameron’s birth. I was able to identify two other baby boys born in the same time frame.”

  Hope swells in my chest, and at the same moment, my fear of the unknown rises to the surface. “So what do we do next?”

  She sits back in her seat and studies me for a few seconds. “I’ve already contacted one family, and they’ve agreed to come in for a meeting with me first thing in the morning. I’ll explain the situation and insist they consent to DNA testing.”

  I take a deep breath, reality settling inside me. “What about the other family?”

  “Right now, I’d like to work with the family I’ve already spoken to,” she explains, propping her elbows on her desk. “Once they consent to testing, I’ll order the lab to process it immediately. If they do indeed have their own son, I’ll contact the second family right away.”

  I allow my eyes to slide to my lap before looking at her once more. “And until then?”

  “Until then, we wait.”

  6 ROUGH PAVEMENT

  Trystan

  “Thank you for your time. Send in the next candidate,” I say to the idiot chef who’s walking out the door after another disappointing showing.

  Opening a restaurant is a pain in the ass, but it’s my passion, and all the remodeling and interviewing in the world isn’t enough to deter me. Today, I’m looking to fill the most important position; the sous chef. This is the person I’ll depend on when I’m here and when I’m not. They’ll need talent and dedication, and I’ve had nothing but a revolving door of morons. I can only hope the next one will be better.

  When he enters my office, I sit back and appraise him. He’s dressed in a suit and tie, holding his resume. He approaches my desk, holding out his hand. “Chef Ashby, so glad to finally meet you.”

  I stare at him and don’t move a muscle. Seeing my resistance, he lays his resume on my desk and takes the chair across from me. “I was so excited when this opportunity arose. The chance to be head sous chef in your new restaurant is high on my list of priorities. I just loved your creations at Bleu,” the prick rambles, kissing as much ass as possible.

  I snort. “Look, Mr. Suck Up, if you were excited about this opportunity, you’d have come in here prepared.”

  Frown lines form on his brow. “I am prepared. I have an excellent resume.”

  I bark out a laugh. “Do you think I give a fuck what your resume says? I’m looking for someone to be my right-hand in the kitchen. You come in here wearing a suit. A fucking suit for Christ’s sake!” I grip my hair. “You didn’t even wear your chef’s jacket. What kind of chef comes to an interview not prepared to cook? I’ll tell you what kind. The kind that doesn’t get the job. Now get the fuck out.” I point to the door, disgusted he even calls himself a chef.

  I fling his resume across the room, only to watch papers scatter to the floor a few feet away. Fucking idiot. I’m glad he was the last interview for today. It didn’t help with my search, but I’ve about had all I can take of ass-kissers for the time being. I glance at my watch, it’s almost time to go pick up my little dude, Blake, anyway.

  I married Kennedy, my high-school girlfriend, straight out of college. By then my passion for cooking had bloomed, and I was looking to the future. She was, too. Only her future was zeroed in on my inheritance. I can see that now, but then, you couldn’t tell me anything. It wasn’t until she found out she was pregnant that things started becoming clearer.

  One day, she came to me all teary eyed, as if she’d heard the worst news ever. But she hadn’t. She was only carrying our child; one I thought was formed in a happy marriage. She never saw it that way, though. I realize now that I’m lucky she carried him to full term. He wasn’t even six months old when she announced she was divorcing me.

  I was murderous.

  How could she look at our son, who favors her so much, and want to walk away? I can’t imagine it, but she did. All she wanted was to be free from us and free to live a comfortable life. I provided that—in exchange for her relinquishing all rights to our son. If she was walking away, she was never coming back.

  We haven’t seen her since.

  Good fucking riddance!

  I toss my chef’s jacket on my desk and head toward the kitchen to find Brandon, my restaurant manager, to let him know I’m done for the day. Before I even make it there, though, his voice is echoing down the hallway.

  “This is not the ingredient Trystan ordered!” he yells to an unseen entity.

  I smirk as I step around the corner, propping against it with my arms crossed. “Sounds like your day is just as fucked up as mine.” Both he and the terrified delivery guy’s eyes snap in my direction. Jim, as his name tag says, looks like he’s hoping for a reprieve, and Brandon just looks pissed. “Oh, now you’ve really gone and done it,” Brandon says, motioning my way. “Now you’ve got the real asshole’s attention.”

  I chuckle as I move from the wall and take the clipboard from Brandon’s hand, looking over the list. My eyes narrow when they land on a certain ingredient. “What the fuck is this?” I snap, turning my glare to Jim. “I didn’t order any ingredients from China.”

  Jim throws up his hands. “As I told him, I’m just the delivery guy.”
>
  “Is that so?” I ask, shoving the clipboard back to Brandon and stepping closer to Jim. “Well deliver this whole order back where it came from. Inform the suppliers that I’ll find a company who can meet my needs.”

  “But, sir—”

  “Save it,” Brandon barks. “You heard him. Load it all back on the truck.”

  Jim obviously isn’t happy with this turn of events, but he wisely doesn’t argue further and lifts the first box before heading out the delivery door. Brandon smirks at his retreating form. “I almost feel bad for him.”

  “He’s still doing what he gets paid for.” I shrug, twirling my keys on my finger. “Anyway, I’m about to head out. Make sure you call that supplier and let them know how bad they fucked up. That’s the cheapest Matcha Green Tea powder on the market and nowhere near my fucking standards.”

  “Got it,” he says with a nod, looking down the list. “What about the rest of it?”

  “The rest looks good, but I can’t have a company who’s going to try and slip cheap shit in every chance they get. Find a new supplier,” I say with a definitive nod. “And be sure to give Jim a good tip.”

  “Got it.” He waves his clipboard-laden hand toward all the gleaming stainless. “The fryer was installed last night. How’s it looking?”

  I scrutinize the referenced piece of cookware while Brandon holds his breath. “Exactly as I instructed.”

  He releases it and claps me on the shoulder. “Good, good,” he says with a nod. “Okay, see ya tomorrow.”

  “Later,” I say as I turn to make my way to my car.

  As I settle behind the wheel, I release a heavy sigh. It’s been a long, tiring day and I just want to lay my eyes on my son. He makes every day worth it. I want to be able to show him that even though he’ll never have to worry about money, he should want to chase his dream.

  Whatever that turns out to be.

  My parents were none too pleased to find out that, after obtaining a degree in Business Management, I’d taken a job as a line cook at a restaurant in Atlanta. It was bad enough I’d followed Kennedy there for college, since she had a full scholarship, but then, to “waste my degree” to be a cook, they weren’t happy. But I love cooking. It’s where I find my solace. By the time Blake was born, I’d already worked my way up to sous chef.