Chapter 3 - What Eli Saw
The hospital had placed Eli in a private room on the pediatric floor.
Two uniformed officers stood outside the door.
The baby had been moved to the neonatal unit for observation.
When Agent Briggs and I arrived, a doctor stopped us in the hallway.
“He’s stable.”
“But he needs rest.”
“Five minutes.”
Briggs nodded.
I looked through the small window in the door.
Eli looked much smaller in the hospital bed.
His face had lost some of the frightening redness.
An IV line ran into his arm.
A cooling blanket covered his legs.
When I entered, he opened his eyes.
“You came.”
“I said I would.”
His gaze moved past me.
“Where’s Noah?”
“The baby?”
He nodded.
“He’s okay.”
“Doctors are watching him.”
For the first time, Eli’s shoulders relaxed.
Then he noticed Briggs.
His entire body stiffened.
“No police.”
“He’s FBI.”
“That’s worse.”
Briggs stopped several feet from the bed.
“Eli, my name is Owen.”
“I’m trying to find your mother.”
Eli looked away.
“She’s dead.”
The room went silent.
Briggs pulled a chair closer.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because I saw them put her in the basement.”
My pulse quickened.
“What basement?” Briggs asked.
Eli looked at me instead of him.
“The white house.”
“What white house?”
“Where they kept us.”
Briggs took out a notebook.
“Eli, start wherever you can.”
The boy swallowed.
“We weren’t supposed to go there.”
“Mom said we were meeting someone who could help Dad.”
“Help him with what?”
Eli’s fingers curled into the sheet.
“He found out his company was stealing money.”
Briggs’s eyes sharpened.
“What company?”
“Hale Biomedical.”
I knew the name.
Everyone did.
It was one of the largest medical technology companies in the region.
Hospitals used their diagnostic equipment.
Their founder appeared on television every few months.
I looked at Briggs.
He clearly knew much more.
Eli continued.
“My dad worked there.”
“His name is Michael Hale.”
Briggs finally spoke.
“Your father is the chief financial officer.”
Eli nodded.
“Was.”
“Mom said he disappeared because he found something.”
“How long has he been missing?”
“Three weeks.”
That wasn’t what the public knew.
I remembered seeing a business article saying Michael Hale had resigned unexpectedly for personal reasons.
There had been no mention of a disappearance.
“What did he find?” Briggs asked.
“I don’t know.”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
“But he told Mom that people were going to get hurt.”
Eli looked at me.
“Lots of people.”
Briggs leaned forward.
“What happened Tuesday night?”
Eli closed his eyes.
“Mom woke me up.”
“She told me to get dressed.”
“Noah was crying.”
“We drove for a long time.”
“She kept checking behind us.”
“Then we stopped at a white house in the woods.”
“There was a man waiting.”
“Did you know him?”
Eli nodded.
“Uncle Grant.”
Briggs stopped writing.
“Grant Hale?”
Eli looked surprised.
“You know him?”
Grant Hale.
Michael Hale’s older brother.
And, if I remembered correctly, CEO of Hale Biomedical.
Briggs’s voice became careful.
“What did Grant do?”
“At first, nothing.”
“He hugged Mom.”
“He told her Dad was safe.”
“Then another man came out of the house.”
“Mom got scared.”
“She told us to run back to the car.”
“But Grant grabbed her.”
Eli’s breathing changed.
I stepped closer.
“You don’t have to rush.”
He shook his head.
“I heard her screaming.”
“She told me to take Noah.”
“I ran behind the house.”
“There was a little window near the ground.”
“I looked inside.”
His eyes filled with tears.
“They were dragging her downstairs.”
“Who?”
“Uncle Grant.”
“And the man from the house.”
“Did you recognize the second man?”
“No.”
“He had a scar.”
“Here.”
Eli touched the side of his neck.
Briggs wrote it down.
“What happened next?”
“I hid with Noah.”
“For hours.”
“Then I saw Mom again.”
My heart lifted slightly.
“She was alive?”
Eli’s face twisted.
“I don’t know.”
“They carried her out wrapped in a blanket.”
Nobody moved.
The machines beside him beeped steadily.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I stayed hidden.”
“Then a woman found us.”
“What woman?”
“She looked like Mom.”
That caught all of us off guard.
“What do you mean?” Briggs asked.
“Same hair.”
“Same coat.”
“Almost the same voice.”
“She told me Mom sent her.”
“I didn’t believe her.”
“But Noah was hungry.”
“She had formula.”
“She said she’d take us to Dad.”
Eli stared at the ceiling.
“She put us in the van.”
“Then she drove.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“She kept making calls.”
“She said somebody lost the blue bag.”
Briggs and I exchanged a look.
“So the bag was already in the van?”
Eli nodded.
“Mom gave it to me before we went to the white house.”
“She said if anything happened, I had to keep it.”
“What was inside?”
“I never opened it.”
“Why not?”
“She told me not to.”
“What did it look like?”
“Blue canvas.”
“Small.”
“With a silver zipper.”
Briggs’s expression hardened.
“What did the woman do when she realized you had it?”
Eli started trembling.
“She asked me where Mom put the evidence.”
“I said I didn’t know.”
“She kept asking.”
“I wouldn’t tell her.”
“Then she got angry.”
“She parked at the store.”
“She told me she was going inside for water.”
“But before she left…”
He stopped.
“What?” I asked softly.
“She locked the doors.”
Briggs’s jaw clenched.
“Did she know the temperature outside?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she said something.”
“What?”
Eli looked directly at me.
“She said I had ten minutes to remember where the bag was.”
A sick silence filled the room.
“She was coming back?”
“I think so.”
“Then why leave the baby?”
Eli started crying again.
“She said Noah crying would help me think.”
My hands curled into fists.
“She wanted to scare you.”
Eli shook his head.
“No.”
“She wanted me to choose.”
“Choose what?”
“Tell her where the bag was.”
“Or watch Noah die.”
I looked away for a moment.
Briggs didn’t.
He stayed focused.
“How did the bag get into the hidden seat compartment?”
“I put it there while she was getting gas.”
“So she didn’t know?”
“No.”
“Did anyone else?”
Eli hesitated.
“Maybe.”
“Who?”
“A man kept following us.”
“What man?”
“I saw him at the gas station.”
“Then again near the store.”
“Tan hat.”
My skin prickled.
The same man.
Briggs stood.
“Eli, you did very well.”
“We’re going to find him.”
“No.”
Eli grabbed my arm.
Briggs paused.
“What is it?”
“You can’t arrest him.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s not with them.”
Briggs stared at him.
“How do you know?”
Eli swallowed.
“Because Dad sent him.”
Everything shifted.
The tan-cap man hadn’t been following the woman.
He had been following Eli.
Protecting him.
Maybe trying to recover the bag before Grant Hale’s people could.
Briggs sat again.
“Did your father tell you that?”
“No.”
“The man did.”
“When?”
“At the gas station.”
“He came near me while the woman was paying.”
“He whispered something.”
“What did he say?”
Eli’s voice dropped.
“He said, ‘Your father is alive.’”
No one in the room breathed.
Then Eli finished.
“He told me if anything went wrong, I had to give him the blue bag.”
Briggs stood immediately.
He stepped into the hallway and began making calls.
I remained beside Eli.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then he looked toward me.
“Daniel?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think my dad really is alive?”
I wanted to say yes.
I wanted to give him something hopeful.
But after everything I had heard, I couldn’t lie.
“I think somebody wants us to believe he is.”
Eli nodded slowly.
Then he reached beneath his hospital blanket.
His hand came out holding something small.
A folded piece of paper.
“What’s that?”
He looked toward the door.
Then whispered.
“I lied about the bag.”
My heartbeat jumped.
“What do you mean?”
“I opened it.”
He unfolded the paper.
There were numbers written across it.
And beneath them, a name.
One name.
GRANT HALE.
I stared at Eli.
“What else was inside?”
“A flash drive.”
“Where is it?”
He shook his head.
“I didn’t leave it in the van.”
“Then where?”
Eli looked straight into my eyes.
“I put it in your pocket.”
For a second, I thought I had misunderstood him.
Then my hand moved slowly toward the jacket I had been wearing in the parking lot.
The jacket now hung over the back of the chair.
I reached into the outer pocket.
My fingers touched something hard.
Small.
Plastic.
I pulled it out.
A black flash drive.
Eli whispered.
“Mom said if everyone else failed…”
He looked at me.
“…give it to the person who saves you.”
And that was when someone outside the room screamed.
A gunshot cracked through the hallway.
May you like
The lights went out.
And somewhere in the darkness, a man shouted my name.
