Chapter 2 - Room 417
Emily pulled her wrist from Daniel's hand.
"Who is that?"
"I don't know."
"Then why are you afraid?"
Daniel did not answer.
The knock came again.
Rachel's voice followed from the hallway.
"Emily? Everything okay?"
Relief flashed across Emily's face.
She opened the door before Daniel could stop her.
Rachel stood outside with a hospital security officer.
Nobody else was there.
"You called security?" Emily asked.
Rachel shook her head.
"He was looking for Mr. Whitaker."
The officer introduced himself as Marcus Reed.
"Someone reported a possible custody issue involving the child."
Daniel stiffened.
"What custody issue?"
Marcus checked his tablet.
"Anonymous caller said the child might have been brought here without authorization."
"I'm her father."
"Do you have identification?"
Daniel produced his wallet.
Marcus examined it.
Then he looked at Lily.
"Everything appears fine. I'll document it."
"Who called?" Daniel asked.
"Anonymous."
"When?"
"Nine forty-three."
Daniel looked at the clock.
Lily had arrived at 9:17.
Only twenty-six minutes earlier.
Someone knew exactly where they were.
Emily saw the realization in his face.
After Marcus left, Daniel closed the door.
"We need to leave."
"Lily needs observation."
"Then observe her somewhere else."
"That isn't how hospitals work."
"Emily, somebody followed us."
"You don't know that."
Daniel held up the bracelet.
"Yes, I do."
Emily folded her arms.
"Start talking."
Daniel sat beside Lily.
For several seconds he said nothing.
Then he looked at Emily.
"Room 417 was where my sister died."
Emily's anger faltered.
Daniel had rarely spoken about his sister.
She knew only that Rebecca Whitaker had died when Daniel was twenty-two.
Car accident, he had said.
Nothing more.
"Why would that number be on Lily's bracelet?"
"I don't know."
"Who are the initials?"
Daniel looked at the engraving.
"E.W.C."
"I can read."
"I don't know what they mean."
Emily studied him.
He was lying.
Not entirely.
But enough.
"You still do that."
"What?"
"Your left eyebrow."
Daniel frowned.
"When you're hiding something, it lifts."
He almost smiled.
Almost.
Then the moment disappeared.
"Emily, eleven months ago I found documents in my father's office."
"What documents?"
"Financial records. Payments. Names. Dates."
Daniel's father, Charles Whitaker, had built Whitaker Development into one of the largest private construction firms in the state.
Powerful.
Respected.
Ruthless.
Emily had met him twice.
Both times she had left feeling as though she had been interviewed for a position she never applied for.
Daniel continued.
"Some of the payments went back twenty years. Rebecca's name appeared beside one."
Emily sat slowly.
"What does that mean?"
"I didn't know. So I started asking questions."
"And?"
"My father told me to stop."
"You disappeared because your father told you to stop asking about accounting records?"
"No."
Daniel's eyes hardened.
"I disappeared because someone broke into my apartment and left photographs of you sleeping."
Emily stopped breathing.
"What?"
"They were taken through your bedroom window."
"No."
"Three photographs. One had a message."
Daniel's voice cracked for the first time.
"It said, Walk away or she becomes Rebecca."
Emily stared at him.
Every angry speech she had rehearsed during the past eleven months vanished.
"You should have told me."
"I wanted to."
"You should have gone to the police."
"I did."
"And?"
"The detective I spoke to called my father forty minutes later."
Emily felt sick.
"So you left me."
"I thought whoever was watching me would stop watching you if they believed I had ended things."
"You could have warned me."
"And if your phone was monitored?"
"You don't know that it was."
"No. I didn't know anything."
Daniel rubbed both hands across his face.
"I was terrified."
Emily looked toward Lily.
"Where does she fit into this?"
Daniel was quiet.
"Lily is Rebecca's daughter."
Emily stared at him.
"Your sister had a child?"
"Yes."
"You told me Lily was your daughter."
"She is."
"Daniel."
"Legally, emotionally, in every way that matters. I adopted her after Rebecca died."
Emily looked at the little girl.
Six years old.
The timeline did not make sense.
"You said Rebecca died when you were twenty-two."
"I lied."
Emily stood.
"You what?"
"Rebecca died six years ago."
Emily felt another piece of the man she had loved fracture.
"Why?"
"Because my father made it clear that nobody outside the family was supposed to know Lily existed."
"Why?"
"I never knew."
Emily stared at him.
Eleven months of silence suddenly felt connected to something much older.
"You lied about your sister. You lied about Lily. You disappeared. And now someone puts a bracelet on her with the room number where Rebecca died."
Daniel looked down.
"Yes."
"What hospital?"
He hesitated.
Then answered.
"This one."
Emily's skin prickled.
"Rebecca died here?"
"Room 417."
Emily knew the room.
Everyone did.
Fourth floor.
Old surgical wing.
Closed three years ago after renovations.
"How?"
Daniel swallowed.
"Officially? Complications after a car accident."
"And unofficially?"
"I think she was murdered."
Lily stirred.
Both adults stopped talking.
Emily checked her monitor.
Stable.
The child opened her eyes.
"Can we go home?"
"Soon," Emily said.
Lily looked at Daniel.
"Is Aunt Claire coming?"
Daniel froze.
"Who?"
"Aunt Claire."
"I don't know an Aunt Claire."
Lily frowned.
"Yes, you do."
"No, bug."
"The lady at school."
Daniel crouched.
"What lady?"
"She said she was Aunt Claire."
"When?"
"Today."
Emily and Daniel exchanged a look.
"What did she look like?" Daniel asked.
"Yellow hair."
"Blonde?"
Lily nodded.
"She gave me the pretty bracelet."
Daniel's face changed.
"What else did she say?"
Lily thought.
"She said Mommy wanted me to have it."
Daniel went silent.
Emily felt her stomach tighten.
Not labor.
Stress.
She placed a hand beneath her belly.
Daniel noticed.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine."
"Emily."
"I'm fine."
Lily looked worried.
"Is the baby okay?"
Emily smiled.
"He's okay."
Daniel's eyes snapped toward her.
"He?"
Emily realized what she had revealed.
Neither spoke.
Lily smiled sleepily.
"I knew it."
Emily looked away.
Daniel whispered, "A boy?"
"Yes."
His eyes filled.
Emily hated that.
She could handle anger.
She could handle excuses.
She could even handle lies.
But seeing him learn that he had a son nearly broke the wall she had spent seven months building.
"How far?"
"You already counted."
"Emily."
"Thirty-one weeks."
Daniel closed his eyes.
Thirty-one weeks.
There was no ambiguity.
He was the father.
When he opened his eyes again, grief had replaced shock.
"I missed everything."
"You chose to."
He nodded.
"I know."
"No. You don't."
Emily's voice remained quiet.
"You didn't sit alone in an ultrasound room while a technician asked whether the father was coming. You didn't buy a crib by yourself. You didn't wake up at three in the morning wondering how you were going to explain to your son that his father disappeared before he knew he existed."
Daniel lowered his head.
"I can't undo it."
"No."
"But I can stop running."
Emily almost answered.
Then Lily spoke.
"Mommy said that too."
Daniel looked at her.
"What?"
Lily's eyes were closing again.
"The night she went to heaven."
Daniel moved closer.
"What did Mommy say?"
Lily whispered, "She said she was done running."
Daniel stared at her.
Rebecca had supposedly been unconscious after her accident.
She could not have spoken to Lily.
Not according to the official report.
"Lily, where did Mommy say that?"
The child struggled to remember.
"In the room."
"What room?"
"The one with the blue door."
Daniel went pale.
Emily knew there were no blue doors in the current hospital.
But six years earlier, before renovations, the fourth-floor surgical wing had used blue doors.
Room 417.
Emily reached for the hospital computer.
Old records were archived.
Her physician credentials gave her limited access.
She typed Rebecca Whitaker.
One result appeared.
Admission date.
Six years earlier.
Trauma.
Room 417.
Emily clicked.
ACCESS RESTRICTED.
"That's unusual," she said.
"What?"
"Medical records aren't normally restricted like this."
"Can you override it?"
"Not without leaving an audit trail."
"Do it."
Emily looked at him.
"If someone inside this hospital is involved—"
"They'll know."
"Exactly."
Daniel looked toward the door.
Then back at the bracelet.
"There may be another way."
He turned the clasp beneath the light.
Then he noticed something else.
A tiny groove.
He pressed it with his thumbnail.
The bracelet popped open.
Not the clasp.
The center plate.
Inside was a microSD card.
Emily stared at it.
Daniel whispered, "Rebecca."
He removed the card.
They needed a computer that was not connected to the hospital network.
Rachel had an old laptop in the staff lounge.
Ten minutes later, Emily inserted the card.
One folder appeared.
R.W.
Inside were three files.
A photograph.
An audio recording.
And a document labeled FOR DANIEL.
Daniel clicked the photograph first.
Rebecca stood beside a younger Charles Whitaker.
Beside them was another man.
Emily recognized him instantly.
Dr. Henry Lawson.
Chief Medical Officer of the hospital.
Her boss.
Daniel opened the audio file.
Static filled the speakers.
Then a woman's frightened voice.
Rebecca.
"If you're hearing this, something happened to me."
Daniel stopped breathing.
Rebecca continued.
"My father knows I found the accounts. Lawson knows too. They think I copied everything, but what I found is bigger than money."
A noise sounded in the recording.
Rebecca lowered her voice.
"They've been paying people for years. Inspectors. Police. Hospital administrators. Anyone who could bury what happened at the Riverside project."
Daniel whispered, "Riverside."
Emily knew the name.
A residential tower built by Whitaker Development.
Twenty-two years earlier, part of it collapsed during construction.
Four workers died.
Rebecca's voice continued.
"Daniel, if I don't make it, protect Lily. And don't trust—"
The recording cut out.
Silence.
Daniel stared at the screen.
"There's more," Emily said.
The audio timeline showed another six seconds.
She pressed play.
Rebecca's voice returned.
Weak.
Breathless.
"Don't trust Claire."
Daniel stood so quickly the chair fell backward.
Emily looked at him.
"Who is Claire?"
Daniel did not answer.
The staff-lounge door handle slowly turned.
Someone was entering.
Daniel moved in front of Emily.
The door opened.
A blonde woman stood on the other side.
She looked at Daniel.
Then at the computer.
May you like
And smiled.
"Hello, little brother."
