Chapter 6 - A Loose End —
Ortiz left my room at a run.
An officer took her place at the door.
I watched the blank monitor, waiting for someone to tell me Miguel was safe.
Twenty minutes.
Thirty.
The pain medicine made the clock swim.
Finally, Ortiz returned.
“We have him.”
I let out a breath that hurt all the way down.
“Where?”
“Home. He and his mother are being moved somewhere safe.”
“Did Daniel go there?”
“Vanessa called the hotel asking for his address. The manager gave it to her.”
I turned toward the window.
A man had broken through a wall to save me, and now my survival had put his family in danger.
Ortiz pulled up a chair.
“This is their fault.”
“I know.”
But knowing didn’t loosen the pressure in my chest.
That evening, someone tried to enter my old hospital room.
The visitor wore a department jacket and carried flowers.
Hospital security stopped him before he passed the desk.
Ben Harlow.
Daniel’s lieutenant.
He said he needed to speak to me.
Ortiz met him in an interview room. I watched through a video connection, my face hidden from his screen.
Ben sat with both hands flat on the table.
“I know she’s alive.”
Ortiz didn’t respond.
“I heard somebody say a woman was pulled from the pantry. Daniel told me it wasn’t her.”
“Why are you here, Lieutenant?”
Ben stared at the table.
“Because I lied.”
My pulse climbed.
He said Daniel had told him to keep everyone out of the service wing.
Unstable ceiling. Too much heat. No survivable space.
“He said he’d checked it.”
“Had he?”
Ben swallowed.
“I didn’t see him check it.”
“Yet your statement says he tried to reach his wife.”
“He told me what happened.”
“And you reported it as something you witnessed.”
Ben closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
I wanted to throw the tablet.
Instead, I listened.
Daniel had been his captain for eight years. Helped him after a divorce. Covered shifts when his father was sick.
Ben had believed him because believing him was easier than admitting what he might have done.
I knew that kind of cowardice.
I had worn a softer version myself.
“What changed?” Ortiz asked.
Ben reached into his pocket.
The officer beside the door moved.
“Slowly,” Ortiz said.
Ben placed his phone on the table.
“Daniel called last night. Wanted to make sure our stories matched.”
May you like
He looked straight into the camera.
“This time, I recorded him.”
