“At a family dinner, I said, “I’m about to give birth.” My parents sneered, “Call a cab. We’re busy.” I drove myself to the ER in unbearable pain. A week later, my mom showed up at my door and said, “Let me see the baby.”

Where my son’s name should have been, there was only one handwritten word: Hide.

The burner phone lit up in my hand.

YOUR MOTHER SOLD ACCESS TO YOUR DELIVERY. YOUR HUSBAND HELPED US UNTIL HE SWITCHED SIDES. IF YOU WANT YOUR SON, GO TO UNION STATION LOCKER 214. COME ALONE.
Then another message came through.

THE POLICE ARE COMPROMISED.

I glanced toward the front door as my mother pounded on it, screaming my name.

For the first time in my life, I realized the most dangerous person I knew might be the woman who raised me.

I didn’t call the police.

I drove across downtown Denver and reached Union Station late. Locker 214 opened with the key from the diaper bag.

Inside, there was no baby.

Only cash, a flash drive, and a note in Noah’s handwriting.

I’m sorry. If you’re reading this, I failed to get to you first. Trust Lena Morales at St. Mary’s. She saved our son. Your mother is working with Benton.

Richard Benton. My father’s law partner. Hospital donor. The man who had been sitting at my parents’ dinner table the night I went into labor.

The burner phone rang.

“Go to the address in the bag,” a woman said. “Now. They know you left.”

It was Lena.