Chapter 1 - The Cry Beneath the Snow

The first cry came at 11:43 p.m., thin and raw beneath the wind.

Emily Mercer stopped halfway up the stairs and listened.

The farmhouse was old enough to complain in winter. Pipes clicked. Timber shifted. Wind scraped frozen branches against the siding. She had learned every sound in the two years since she moved there, and none of them sounded like a baby.

Upstairs, Sophie was asleep in the nursery.

Emily had checked on her three minutes earlier, tucked the yellow blanket beneath her small chin, and watched the foster baby’s chest rise and fall until the terrible old fear loosened its grip.

Then the cry came again.

Not upstairs.

Outside.

Emily turned toward the front door.

“No,” she whispered.

The thermometer beside the kitchen window read six degrees below zero.

Another cry tore through the wind.

Emily ran.

She shoved her feet into boots without socks, pulled Daniel’s old wool coat from the hook, and froze with one hand on the knob.

Daniel’s coat.

Three years, and she still called it that.

Three years since the road had iced over outside Albany. Three years since the state trooper had come to her hospital room and told her that her husband was dead. Three years since another doctor had stood beside her bed and told her their newborn daughter had died before Emily regained consciousness.

Three years since she had buried two closed caskets in one week.

The cry came again.

Emily opened the door.

Snow blew sideways across the porch.

For one impossible second, there was nothing there.

Then she saw the white bundle beside the top step.

“Oh my God.”

She dropped to her knees.

A baby lay inside a padded carrier half-covered by drifting snow. The child wore a white quilted suit and a knitted cap pulled low over tiny ears. A silver band circled the baby’s left wrist.

Emily scooped the child up.

“Hey. Hey, I’ve got you.”

The baby’s lips trembled. The skin was cold but not blue.

“You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Emily backed toward the door.

Then a second cry came from the darkness near the porch rail.

She stopped.

“What?”

She turned.

Another white carrier sat beside the hydrangea bushes, nearly buried beneath snow.

“No.”

She hurried down two steps, clutching the first baby to her chest.

A third cry came from the walkway.

Then another from beside the old maple.

Emily’s heart began pounding so hard she could hear it.

“Who’s there?” she shouted.

The wind answered.

“Who did this?”

A fifth cry rose from beyond the porch light.

Five.

There were five babies outside her house.

Emily moved without thinking after that. She carried the first baby inside and laid him in Sophie’s portable play yard. She grabbed blankets, ran out again, brought in the second, then the third. She used the wheelbarrow from the porch to bring the last two carriers inside together because her hands had started shaking too badly to trust herself on the ice.

Within four minutes, five infants lay in her living room beneath every blanket she owned.

All were dressed in identical white clothing.

All wore identical silver bracelets.

Three girls. Two boys.

All looked about six or seven months old.

Emily crouched among them, moving from child to child the way she had once moved between bassinets during twelve-hour NICU shifts.

“Airway clear. Breathing good. Come on, sweetheart, look at me.”

One girl blinked up at her with dark gray eyes.

The first boy was crying strongly now, which reassured her. One girl had a weak cough. Another had a faint red patch on her cheek from cold exposure.

Emily touched two fingers to a tiny pulse.

“You’re warm enough to fight me,” she murmured. “That’s good.”

She reached for the phone.

No signal.

The screen read Emergency Calls Only, then changed to No Service.

“That’s impossible.”

Her landline had been disconnected years ago.

The lights flickered once.

Emily looked toward the dark windows.

The third baby began to whimper.

“Okay. We’re not panicking.”

She said it for herself.

She carried the smallest girl closer to the fireplace. The child turned her head, exposing the skin behind her right ear.

Emily stopped breathing.

There, just beneath the hairline, was a tiny crescent-shaped red mark.

A birthmark.

Her hands went numb.

“No.”

She leaned closer.

The mark curved upward like a small red moon.

“No, no, no.”

The room vanished around her.

She was back in St. Catherine’s Hospital three years earlier, half-conscious beneath fluorescent light. A nurse had briefly placed her newborn daughter against her chest before the emergency alarms began.

Emily remembered almost nothing clearly from that night.

But she remembered the small red crescent behind Ava’s right ear.

She had kissed it.

She had whispered, “My little moon.”

Hours later, she had been told Ava was dead.

Emily sank onto the rug.

The baby stared up at her.

“You can’t have that.”

The child’s fingers closed around Emily’s thumb.

“You can’t.”

Headlights swept across the front windows.

Emily jerked upright.

A vehicle turned slowly into the driveway.

Black SUV.

No headlights after it stopped.

Emily’s breath caught.

She gathered the crescent-marked baby into her arms and backed toward the kitchen.

“Who are you?” she whispered to the child.

A car door opened outside.

Emily grabbed the fireplace poker.

The baby in her arms made a soft sound.

Footsteps crossed the porch.

Not rushed.

Not uncertain.

The silhouette appeared beyond the frosted glass in the front door.

Tall.

Broad shoulders.

A man lifted one hand and knocked twice.

Emily stared.

Something inside her recognized the shape before her mind did.

“No.”

The man knocked again.

“Emily.”

The poker slipped in her hand.

Her knees nearly gave way.

That voice had lived in her dreams for three years.

“Emily, open the door.”

She couldn’t move.

The man stepped closer to the glass.

His face came into view beneath the porch light.

Dark hair. A scar cutting through his left eyebrow. The same brown eyes that had once watched her walk down an aisle beneath strings of summer lights.

Older.

Thinner.

Alive.

Emily made a broken sound.

The man put his palm against the glass.

“It’s me.”

She shook her head.

“No.”

“Emily.”

“You’re dead.”

“I know what they told you.”

“You’re dead.”

“I’m not.”

She stumbled backward until the kitchen counter stopped her.

The babies began crying, one after another, disturbed by the sudden tension.

The man looked past her through the glass.

His face changed.

Not surprise.

Recognition.

Fear.

“Emily, listen to me.”

She tightened her grip on the poker.

“If you take one step inside this house, I swear to God—”

“They found you sooner than I thought.”

“Who found me?”

His gaze dropped to the child in her arms.

“The people who left them.”

“What are you talking about?”

He looked toward the road.

“You need to turn off every light.”

“Tell me why you’re alive.”

“I will.”

“Tell me why my daughter’s birthmark is on this baby.”

His eyes closed for half a second.

Emily saw grief there.

Real grief.

That frightened her more than anything.

“Daniel.”

He looked at her again.

“Please open the door.”

“No.”

“Emily, I don’t have time to earn your trust tonight.”

“You had three years.”

His jaw tightened.

“I know.”

“You let me bury you.”

“I know.”

“You let me bury Ava.”

Something in his face broke.

“I know.”

The baby in Emily’s arms began to cry harder.

Daniel glanced toward the silver bracelet.

“Did you cut any of those bands off?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“Why?”

“They transmit when they’re tampered with.”

Emily stared at him.

“Transmit what?”

“Location. Temperature. Heart rate. Sometimes audio.”

She looked down at the bracelet.

The silver surface seemed smooth, almost decorative.

A tiny green light blinked once beneath the clasp.

Emily’s blood ran cold.

“Who put these on them?”

Daniel’s voice dropped.

“Bellwether.”

The name meant nothing at first.

Then it did.

Bellwether Women’s Health.

The fertility clinic Daniel and Emily had used before Ava was conceived.

Emily looked at him through the glass.

“No.”

“Emily—”

“No.”

“You need to hear me.”

“I need the truth.”

“You’ll get it.”

“Now.”

Daniel looked toward the dark road again.

A faint pair of headlights appeared far beyond the trees.

His face hardened.

“Then here is the first piece.”

Emily held herself perfectly still.

Daniel pointed toward the five children crying in her living room.

“Those babies are yours.”

The words seemed to strike the room like a physical blow.

Emily shook her head once.

“No.”

“They’re yours.”

“I had one child.”

“You were told you had one child.”

Her hand tightened around the poker.

“What did they do to me?”

Daniel’s eyes filled with something that looked like shame.

“More than I knew.”

The distant headlights disappeared behind a bend.

Daniel reached into his coat slowly and held up a small black pouch.

“I can shield the bracelets long enough to get you out.”

“Get me out where?”

“A place they don’t know.”

“And Sophie?”

His expression sharpened.

“The baby upstairs?”

“Yes.”

“She comes with us.”

“You don’t get to decide anything about my life.”

“I know.”

“You don’t get to walk back from the dead and give me orders.”

“I know.”

“Stop saying that.”

“I don’t know what else I’m allowed to say.”

For one second, the anger in her chest collided with the memory of the man she had loved.

Then the first baby stopped crying.

A soft electronic chime came from the silver bracelet.

Every bracelet flashed green.

One after another.

Daniel’s face drained of color.

“What?” Emily asked.

“Put the poker down.”

“What?”

“Emily, put it down and get Sophie.”

The headlights reappeared at the end of the driveway.

This time there were two vehicles.

Daniel looked straight at her.

“They know the children are inside.”

Emily stared at the five babies, then toward the stairs where Sophie slept.

The life she had built after death suddenly felt like a room with false walls.

She unlocked the door.

Daniel stepped inside.

Emily pressed the poker against his chest.

“If this is a lie,” she said, “I will make you regret surviving.”

He looked down at the iron point, then back at her.

“That sounds like you.”

“Don’t.”

His eyes softened for one dangerous second.

“I missed you.”

Emily pushed the poker harder.

“You don’t get that either.”

Outside, tires crunched over snow.

Daniel’s tenderness vanished.

“Then hate me in the car.”

May you like

[COMPLETED] She waited ten years for her fiancé, but the night she marri...

[COMPLETED] Five Years After My Mafia Husband Chose Another Woman, He Me...

[COMPLETED] I CALLED MY HUSBAND 18 TIMES WHILE OUR SON WAS DYING. EIGHT...

He opened the black pouch.

“Right now, we move.”