Chapter 6
For a few seconds, I couldn’t make myself ask the next question.
Allison had been in a hospital bed when we left her. She’d been conscious enough to call me, frightened enough to apologize for telling the truth, and sick enough that the staff had kept her under observation.
Now her room was empty.
Daniel was out of the car before I moved. He spoke to the hospital security supervisor on the phone, his voice low and clipped. Elliot stayed beside me, watching my face as if he could tell from it whether his worst fear had come true.
I opened the passenger door.
“Stay here,” I told him.
His eyes narrowed. “You said you were listening.”
“I am. That’s why I’m not dragging you into a hospital room without knowing what happened.”
“I can help.”
“You can help by staying where Daniel can see you.”
He looked like he wanted to argue. Then he glanced toward the hospital entrance and nodded once.
I followed Daniel inside.
The security supervisor met us near the nurses’ station. She was a compact woman with tired eyes and a badge that read MARISOL VEGA. She didn’t offer a handshake.
“Mr. Ricci, I’m sorry. We’re still trying to determine how this happened.”
“Is she hurt?”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell you anything about her medical condition. I can tell you that she isn’t in her room, and we haven’t confirmed where she went.”
“Was she taken?”
Marisol held my gaze.
“We don’t know.”
The answer was honest. It wasn’t comforting.
“Did she leave on her own?”
“We don’t know that either.”
Daniel stepped closer to the desk.
“Who had access to the corridor?”
“Hospital staff, approved visitors, and security. We’re reviewing the logs now.”
“Then let’s review them.”
Marisol hesitated.
“I can share information about the security incident with the police. You’re not family, and you don’t have authorization to see her records.”
“I understand,” I said.
I had spent years believing money could make every door open. That night had shown me how many doors were supposed to stay closed.
“Call the officer you notified,” I told Daniel. “We’ll give them what we know and let them request anything they need.”
He made the call. Marisol led us to a small conference room off the main corridor while we waited. The whiteboard on one wall was covered in old marker stains. A box of tissues sat unopened beside a pitcher of water.
I looked at it and turned away.
A patrol officer arrived several minutes later. He took our names, listened to Daniel’s account, and asked Marisol to explain the hospital’s first findings. She spoke carefully, checking her notes as she went.
At 10:46 p.m., someone had entered an authorization into the hospital’s visitor system under the name Harold Kent.
The name made Daniel’s expression harden.
“Harold Kent is the operations manager at the mansion,” he said. “He’s been missing since the party.”
The officer looked up from his notebook.
“Can you verify that was him?”
“No,” Marisol said. “The name was entered using a valid access credential. But the staff member at the desk doesn’t remember seeing Mr. Kent. No one can confirm his identity.”
“Was a badge issued?” the officer asked.
“Yes. The system shows an escort pass. The person who collected it didn’t sign with a name we can verify.”
“Who escorted Allison out?”
“We’re checking the camera footage.”
The officer asked Marisol to preserve the logs and recordings. She said they were already being secured. The officer wrote down the request, then asked whether Allison had formally discharged herself.
“No,” Marisol said. “There’s no signed discharge form in the system.”
That didn’t tell us whether she’d gone willingly. It told us someone had made the hospital’s records look official enough for a staff member to open a door.
When the officer stepped out to make a call, Daniel pulled up the access information on his tablet. He didn’t touch the hospital’s system. Marisol had given him the printed incident log, and he worked from that.
“Here,” he said.
The entry listed a sponsor code beside Harold’s name. It wasn’t a hospital employee number. It was an outside credential, one the hospital used for approved partner organizations.
“Do you recognize the code?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
He called the number printed at the bottom of the log. No one answered. He tried a second number, then searched the organization name in his own contacts and files.
Marisol watched him work.
“Is that your security department?” she asked.
“Mine,” Daniel said. “The credential originated outside this hospital. I’m trying to identify who issued it.”
The officer returned, and Daniel explained what he was doing. After a brief discussion, the officer allowed him to continue checking the credential’s origin while the hospital preserved its own records.
Elliot waited in the car. I had told Daniel not to bring him inside until we knew whether the hospital was safe. He hadn’t questioned the decision again, but I could picture him in the back seat, watching every entrance.
My phone buzzed.
A message from the neighbor who had Lucy read: She’s safe. We’re inside. No one’s come by.
I read it twice, then sent a thank-you.
The words didn’t ease my fear for Allison. They only reminded me how close a person could come to losing everything they loved without ever leaving home.
Daniel’s phone rang. He answered, listened, and wrote a line on the printed log.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The credential was provisioned through a small outpatient clinic,” he said. “The system lists the sponsor as St. Anne’s.”
Elliot appeared in the conference-room doorway.
The officer turned toward him. “You’re supposed to be outside.”
“I heard the name,” Elliot said. His attention was fixed on the paper in Daniel’s hand. “St. Anne’s?”
The room seemed to draw tighter around us.
“It’s the hospital where I was born,” he said. “The one where they said I died.”
No one spoke for a beat.
The officer looked from Elliot to me. “You’re sure?”
“It’s the same name,” Elliot said. “I don’t know whether it’s the same building.”
Daniel was already searching the address attached to the sponsor code. A line of information appeared on his screen. He enlarged it.
“The clinic’s listed at a different address from the old hospital,” he said. “But it’s connected to the St. Anne’s medical group.”
Elliot stepped closer to the table. He didn’t touch the paper.
“Did the authorization say Allison was being taken there?”
“No,” Daniel said. “It only gives the clinic as the sponsor for the credential. That’s all we know.”
It was a small distinction, but it mattered. The address might be a lead. It wasn’t proof that Allison had gone there, and it wasn’t proof that Elliot’s past and her disappearance were tied together.
The officer called it in for a check. While he spoke, Daniel searched for the clinic’s current contact information. The first number rang unanswered. The website listed a records office and a general line, but the clinic’s public directory showed a recent change to its operating status.
Daniel frowned.
“What?” I asked.
“Something’s wrong with the listing.”
He refreshed the page. The records-office entry vanished. A moment later, the clinic’s location page did too.
“Maybe it’s a site issue,” I said.
“Maybe.” He copied the address and the directory information he’d already found. “But the changes are happening right now.”
He tried the clinic’s main line again. This time the call went through to a recorded message, then disconnected. The officer was still on the phone, asking someone to verify the address and dispatch a unit if there was a lawful basis.
Elliot stared at the empty space where the directory entry had been.
“My father took me there,” he said quietly. “I don’t remember the building. I remember the smell of wet pavement. And a woman telling me not to say my old name.”
He stopped himself.
“That might be nothing.”
“It might be,” I said. “We don’t turn a memory into evidence just because it fits.”
His jaw tightened, but he nodded.
Daniel looked up from his tablet.
“The clinic’s records listing is being pulled down. Not just one page. The contact information, the old appointment portal—several entries are disappearing.”
“Can you see who’s doing it?” I asked.
“No. And I’m not going to break into a system to find out.” He saved what he had and set the tablet down. “But the timing isn’t random.”
The officer ended his call.
“A unit can check the address,” he said. “I’m not sending anyone in without confirmation of a crime or a reason to believe Ms. Reed is there. We’re treating her disappearance as a welfare concern and preserving the information.”
It was sensible. It was also maddening.
I wanted to do what my father’s money and my own reputation had taught me to do: send men to every door and demand answers. But fear wasn’t permission. And Allison wasn’t a piece on a board that belonged to me because she worked in my house.
“What can we do right now?” I asked.
“Stay available,” the officer said. “If Ms. Reed contacts you, tell her not to go anywhere alone. Don’t confront anyone based on an unverified connection.”
“I won’t.”
Daniel gathered the printed log. His phone began vibrating before he could put it away. He checked the screen.
“Hospital nurse,” he said.
The officer moved closer. Daniel answered on speaker.
A woman’s voice came through, strained but controlled.
“Mr. Ricci? I’m calling about Allison Reed.”
My grip tightened around the edge of the table.
“What happened?”
“She contacted us. I can’t tell you her location without her consent, but she asked me to pass along a message.”
The nurse paused. In the silence, I could hear the low hum of the hospital lights.
“What did she say?” I asked.
“One word.”
May you like
The nurse took a breath.
“Basement.”
