Chapter 3 - The Man in the Hallway
The emergency lights came on three seconds later.
A dim red glow filled the room.
Machines beeped around me.
Footsteps rushed through the hallway.
Laura pulled her weapon.
“Stay in bed.”
“What’s happening?”
“Probably a power issue.”
“You don’t believe that.”
She moved toward the door.
A shadow crossed the narrow window.
Laura froze.
“Who’s there?”
No answer.
She opened the door quickly.
The hallway was empty.
A nurse stood near the emergency stairwell.
“Did someone come in here?” Laura asked.
“No.”
“Did you see anyone leave?”
The nurse shook her head.
Then she looked down.
A white envelope rested on the floor outside my room.
My name was written across the front.
Emily.
Laura picked it up with gloved fingers.
“Don’t touch it.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
She opened the envelope carefully.
Inside was a printed photograph.
It showed me asleep in the hospital bed.
Taken less than an hour earlier.
My stomach turned.
On the back, someone had written four words.
You should have died.
Laura immediately called for security.
The floor was locked down.
Every stairwell was checked.
Every elevator was stopped.
No one found anything.
The hospital reviewed the camera footage.
At 10:32 a.m., a man wearing blue medical scrubs entered the floor.
His face was hidden behind a mask.
He walked past my room once.
Then again.
At 10:41, the camera feed went black.
At 10:47, it returned.
By then, the man was gone.
“Was it Jason?” I asked.
Laura paused the footage.
“Different height.”
“Robert?”
“Possibly.”
“Or someone hired by them.”
“That is also possible.”
I looked toward the door.
“Move me.”
“We already are.”
“To where?”
“A secure wing.”
“No visitors.”
“No public room number.”
“Two officers outside.”
I tried to sit up.
Pain moved through my body.
Laura helped me.
“Your body is still recovering.”
“My husband knows where I am.”
“We don’t know that he sent this.”
I held up the photograph.
“Someone knows.”
Laura did not argue.
That afternoon, I was moved to another floor under a different name.
A hospital social worker helped me change into fresh clothing.
The police took my phone.
They took my laptop.
They took every object Jason might have accessed.
At sunset, Laura returned with another detective.
His name was Marcus Reed.
He placed a tablet on the table.
“We recovered messages from Jason’s cloud account.”
I looked at the screen.
The messages were between Jason and someone saved as M.
One message had been sent two months earlier.
She is getting worse.
Another said:
Doctors are useful when they write things down.
Then:
Make sure the policy is clean.
My chest tightened.
“M is Margaret.”
“We think so,” Marcus said.
“Think?”
“The account was created using an encrypted email.”
“But it’s her.”
“We need more.”
I scrolled.
A message from Jason appeared.
What if she calls someone?
The reply came two minutes later.
She won’t make it downstairs.
My hand went numb.
Laura took the tablet from me.
“That is enough.”
“No.”
I reached for it.
“I want to see everything.”
“There’s one more message.”
She hesitated.
“Show me.”
Laura turned the screen back.
Jason had written:
What about Sophie?
The reply was immediate.
She will do what she always does.
Nothing.
I closed my eyes.
Sophie knew.
Maybe not everything.
But enough.
The room telephone rang.
Everyone looked at it.
No one had been given the number.
Laura answered on speaker.
“Who is this?”
For several seconds, there was only breathing.
Then Sophie’s voice whispered through the line.
“Emily?”
I sat up.
“Sophie?”
“I need to tell you something.”
Her voice shook violently.
“Jason didn’t go to Paris alone.”
The line crackled.
May you like
Then she whispered one final sentence.
“Mom disappeared with him last night.”
