Chapter 5 - THE DYING WHISPER
Elena dropped her gun, falling to her knees beside the dying woman.
She pulled off her own heavy winter coat and wrapped it around Mia’s freezing frame, pressing her gloved hands over the bloody towel on Mia’s stomach to apply pressure.
"Mia... Mia, stay with me," Elena pleaded, her voice trembling. "My name is Elena. I'm a detective with Westbridge Police. You’re safe now. We found your baby. She’s safe at the hospital."
Mia’s eyes fluttered open, glassy and unfocused. She looked at Elena, her chest heaving with shallow, agonizing breaths.
"My... my baby?" Mia rasped, her voice barely a breath of air.
"She’s alive, Mia. She’s breathing. Noah brought her to the station," Elena said, tears stinging her eyes. "You did so good. But I need you to hold on. The paramedics are coming."
A faint, heartbreaking whisper escaped Mia’s lips. "Daniel... he took... he took the papers..."
"What papers, Mia?" Elena asked, leaning closer to catch her fading voice.
"The... the birth certificate... from the clinic..." Mia gasped, her hand feebly grasping Elena’s sleeve. "He... he isn't... he isn't just... my sister's husband..."
Mia’s head rolled to the side, her eyes slipping shut as her body went limp.
"Mia! Mia, stay with me!" Elena screamed, frantically checking for a carotid pulse. It was faint, rapid, and threadbare.
The paramedics burst into the room with a gurney, shoving Elena aside to begin chest compressions and bag-valve oxygen.
As they lifted Mia’s unconscious body onto the stretcher, Elena shone her flashlight on the floor where Mia had been lying.
Lying in the puddle of blood beneath the canvas tarp was a small, plastic-laminated card that had fallen from Mia’s pocket.
Elena picked it up and wiped the blood off the surface.
It was a private DNA paternity test report from a lab in Chicago, dated two weeks prior.
Elena read the results under her flashlight beam, and her blood went colder than the rain outside.
The probability of paternity for the newborn infant was 99.9%.
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The father was not Daniel Miller.
The father was Laura and Mia’s wealthy, influential father—the former Mayor of Westbridge, Richard Bennett.
