Chapter 9 - SUBJECT TWELVE Melissa survived.
At the hospital, she refused to speak until investigators promised that the missing infant would not be returned to NurtureTrack.
The child’s name was Ava Reynolds.
Four months old.
Her parents believed she had died after a respiratory emergency two weeks earlier.
Melissa had falsified the hospital death record and removed Ava before the body-identification process.
“Why?” Lauren asked from behind the observation glass.
Melissa looked toward the camera.
“Vale said dead subjects could be monitored without parental interference.”
The sentence chilled everyone.
Ava had been kept inside a private Phoenix apartment equipped with cameras, sensors, and automated feeders. NurtureTrack intended to study her under a new identity.
Melissa stole her after deciding the project had gone too far.
“You decided that after kidnapping her?” Ortiz asked.
“I told myself she would be safer with us than with her parents.”
“Why?”
“Her father had begun increasing the doses.”
The same pattern.
Recruit a caregiver.
Reward stronger reactions.
Remove the child if the family became inconvenient.
Melissa provided the apartment address.
Police found it empty except for a crib, monitoring equipment, and a live video wall displaying feeds from eleven homes.
Some showed infants sleeping.
Others showed parents feeding bottles or checking sensors.
Hannah’s camera appeared in the center even though police believed every device had been disconnected.
The feed came from the baby blanket.
A thread-thin camera was woven into its decorative stitching.
Lauren had carried it from the pediatric office to the house, ambulance, hospital, and secure room.
Dr. Lawson had handed her that blanket after Hannah’s examination.
He stared at the screen.
“It came from our clinic’s supply cabinet.”
Bell had maintained the clinic network and could have placed it there.
Yet the blanket packaging showed Dr. Lawson’s initials.
He had signed the inventory sheet the morning of the appointment.
“I sign dozens at once.”
Lauren’s patience snapped.
“You keep being close enough to every mistake to explain it.”
Ortiz removed him from the investigation area.
The apartment server identified Ava as Subject Twelve.
Hannah was Subject Thirteen.
The first eleven subjects included the original trial infants. Several were still alive. Their families had never known that NurtureTrack continued collecting data through hacked monitors and copied medical portals.
The missing Ava feed remained active.
It showed a dark room and the edge of a crib.
A woman hummed softly beyond the camera.
Melissa recognized the voice.
“Miriam Vale.”
Ortiz’s technicians traced the transmission to a desert property north of Phoenix.
Police prepared a raid.
Before they left, the Hannah feed zoomed toward Lauren without anyone touching the controls.
A text field opened:
Bring Subject Thirteen. Exchange possible.
Vale wanted Hannah for Ava.
Lauren knew it was a trap.
She also knew another mother believed her baby was dead.
The raid proceeded without her.
At the desert property, police found Ava alive inside a temperature-controlled nursery.
Miriam Vale was gone.
On a table beside the crib lay photographs of Lauren’s secure hospital room taken less than an hour earlier.
One showed Florence holding Hannah while Lauren spoke to Ortiz.
On the back, Vale had written:
Safety caregiver remains compliant.
Lauren looked toward Florence.
“What does that mean?”
May you like
Florence began shaking.
👉 Miriam Vale’s note suggested Florence was still following instructions after claiming she had turned against the study.
