Chapter 12 - Baby CAnna insisted she remembered only two cries.
The delivery records described twins.
The trust documents funded two boys.
Yet the motel file referred to Baby C.
Evelyn suspected the third designation did not mean a third biological child. Hospitals sometimes reused temporary labels during emergency transfers.
But the file contained a newborn footprint.
It did not match Lucas’s preserved birth print.
Wyatt’s original print was missing.
The teenager seen with Candice might be a substitute intended to confuse DNA and custody evidence.
Or he might be connected to the hospital operation that stole Wyatt.
Nora traced the identification bracelet visible in the motel footage.
It belonged to Owen Mercer, sixteen, reported missing from a private rehabilitation program three months earlier.
Owen’s mother claimed he was sent to Ridgeway after a court declared her unable to control him.
Marlene Voss signed his transfer.
Ridgeway had been supplying Candice with teenagers whose identities could be altered.
Owen resembled Wyatt because the program selected children based on physical characteristics.
Candice could use him to stage sightings, falsify travel, or replace Wyatt temporarily during medical testing.
Lucas looked at Gabriel.
“She wasn’t just doing this to us.”
“No.”
The hidden folder had opened a network involving many families.
Ridgeway records revealed children placed under new names after inheritances, insurance settlements, or custody disputes.
Some were abused.
Some were drugged.
Some disappeared from public records entirely.
Candice’s role focused on financial identity.
Marlene handled transport.
Charles Morrow handled trusts.
Cedar Vale supplied medical declarations.
Anna had discovered part of the system while searching for Wyatt.
That discovery led to her crash.
Nora received a call from Owen’s mother.
Owen had contacted her from a truck stop.
Candice left him there after realizing police tracked the vehicle.
He was frightened but alive.
He told investigators Candice kept repeating one sentence:
“Wyatt is not the child I was paid to take.”
Gabriel stared.
“Then who was?”
Owen said Candice carried a hospital ledger and an old photograph of three newborn bassinets.
She planned to meet someone named Dr. Everett Kane.
Kane had supervised Anna’s delivery sixteen years earlier.
Official records said he died from a heart attack nine years ago.
A property search showed he was alive under another name in Kentucky.
Gabriel, Nora, and Evelyn traveled there with a court order.
They found Kane inside an assisted-living facility.
He initially denied remembering Anna.
Then Gabriel placed the Baby A bracelet and the copied Baby C footprint before him.
Kane began shaking.
“There were two Hart babies,” he said. “And one unidentified infant brought in during the storm.”
The unidentified baby’s mother died during an emergency delivery in another hospital wing.
No relatives could be located.
Candice altered the records so Wyatt appeared to be that orphan, while the orphan received Wyatt’s deceased-infant designation.
“What happened to the third child?” Gabriel asked.
Kane looked toward the door.
“Marlene took him.”
“Where?”
“Into the Ridgeway system.”
The teenager labeled Baby C was not Gabriel’s child.
But his identity had been used to erase Wyatt.
Kane signed the false death certificate under pressure after Marlene threatened his family.
He also confirmed Candice removed Wyatt from the nursery.
“Why?”
“She was paid to deliver the Hart heir to someone outside the family.”
“Who paid her?”
Kane whispered a name.
“Anna Hart.”
Gabriel recoiled.
Anna, heavily medicated and recovering in Cleveland, had denied surrendering Wyatt.
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Kane claimed she secretly arranged the removal herself.
👉 The delivery doctor confirmed Candice took Wyatt, but he accused Anna of ordering her own baby’s disappearance.
