Chapter 7 - Briar House
Briar House was not listed as a hospital.
It was a twelve-bedroom estate registered to a property company registered to another company.
Rebecca found the connection through a payment Julian had personally approved.
Ortiz sent the address to her team.
I expected to be told to go home.
Instead, she asked me to remain at the hotel while officers collected David’s phone and took my formal statement.
Alexander paced beside the window.
“Three years,” he said.
He had been saying it for ten minutes.
Three years.
Birthdays.
Christmas mornings.
A remarriage.
Every ordinary day he had lived while Elise waited somewhere for a door to open.
Rebecca’s phone rang.
The fertility clinic had reached its records director.
She put the call on speaker with permission.
The embryo transfer had been authorized eight months earlier.
The consent forms carried Elise’s signature.
And Alexander’s.
“That’s impossible,” he said.
The clinic was preserving its records.
Rebecca requested everything through the proper process and ended the call.
Alexander stared at his hands.
“They used my signature again.”
“Maybe,” Ortiz said.
“We’ll establish that.”
She refused to give him easy answers.
I liked her for it.
At 11:41, a patrol unit reached Briar House.
The front gate was open.
The house lights were off.
A groundskeeper claimed no patients lived there.
Ortiz listened through her earpiece.
Then her expression sharpened.
“What kind of vehicle?”
Alexander stopped pacing.
A white medical transport van had left six minutes earlier.
Partial plate.
Northline logo.
My breath caught.
“Those vans have fleet tracking.”
Ortiz looked at me.
“David complained about it.
Dispatch knew when he stopped for coffee.”
She relayed the information.
Outside, rain scratched against the glass.
Vanessa sat with her elbows on her knees.
Her rounded stomach was gone.
Without it, she looked smaller.
Not innocent.
Just smaller.
“Was that the plan?” Alexander asked.
“You’d walk out of a hospital holding her baby?”
Vanessa nodded once.
“And Elise?”
She cried harder.
“What happened to Elise after you got what you wanted?”
Vanessa would not look at him.
Ortiz’s phone rang.
She listened.
“Keep them in sight.
Do not attempt a roadside confrontation unless they stop.”
She hung up.
“They found the van.”
Alexander grabbed his coat.
“Where?”
“Heading toward the river.”
Vanessa raised her head.
“The river?”
Something in her voice made all of us turn.
May you like
She stood so quickly her chair fell.
“There isn’t a clinic that way.”
