Chapter 2 - If They Find Me
The note inside the envelope was short enough to read before the conference-room door finished swinging shut.
Daniel is not safe to trust.
Ethan read the line twice, then lowered the paper. Noah watched him from the other side of the table, both hands wrapped around the edge of his green backpack. Caleb had tucked his stuffed fox beneath his chin.
“Does it say where Mom is?” Noah asked.
“It says she wants me to find something.” Ethan kept his voice level. “Original mailroom receipts. She kept them, and she left them somewhere we both know.”
“Why would she hide receipts?”
Ethan looked down at Hannah’s handwriting. The familiar slant seemed to pull six lost years into the room with them. He could remember her scribbling grocery lists, teasing notes, a message once left on his windshield after he’d worked too late. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her write his name.
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “But I’m going to find out.”
Lauren stood by the glass wall, her phone in one hand. She had been trying to reach St. Vincent’s, but her attention fixed on the newest returned envelope.
“Can I see that instruction again?”
Ethan slid it across the table. She read the block lettering without touching the red stamp.
“I didn’t authorize this,” she said. “And this isn’t a facilities note.”
“What is it?”
“A restricted-office format. The kind used for correspondence routed through the executive suite.” Her gaze moved from the envelope to Ethan. “I’ve seen the template. I can’t tell you who entered the instruction from this.”
Ethan felt the words land like a hand against his chest. Someone had not merely failed to deliver Hannah’s letters. Someone had put a barrier between them and labeled it official.
“Can you preserve the routing logs?”
“I already asked facilities to hold them.” Lauren’s mouth tightened. “I’ll make sure the request doesn’t go through the usual chain.”
Noah shifted in his chair. His eyes moved between the grown-ups, reading their faces with the wary attention of a child who had learned to notice what people didn’t say.
“Are you going to find her now?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Can we come?”
Ethan glanced at Caleb, who was quiet against Noah’s side, fox clutched in one fist. He wanted to take them both with him. He wanted to keep them where he could see them. He also knew a hospital could be frightening in ways he couldn’t shield them from just by standing close.
“Lauren will stay with you here,” he said. “You’ll be together. I’ll call as soon as I know anything.”
Noah considered that, then nodded once. It wasn’t trust, exactly. It was the best he could offer.
Lauren moved beside the boys. “I’ll get you something to eat, and we’ll stay in this room. No one comes in unless Ethan says so.”
Caleb pressed the fox to his mouth.
Ethan paused at the door. “I’ll be back.”
Noah didn’t answer. But Caleb lifted one hand from the fox and gave a small, uncertain wave.
Ethan carried the envelope with him. The bundle of returned letters remained on the table, their red stamps bright against the conference-room glass.
He was halfway to the elevator when his phone rang. Daniel’s name appeared on the screen.
Ethan answered. “What?”
“I heard you’re headed to St. Vincent’s,” Daniel said. “I can have a car take you.”
Ethan stopped walking. “How did you hear that?”
“I have people in the building, Ethan. You’ve got two children downstairs and a hospital to get to. Let me make one part of your day easier.”
The offer sounded reasonable. That was what made Ethan’s skin prickle.
“No.”
A beat of silence. “You don’t need to turn everything into a fight.”
“Then don’t send a car.”
Ethan ended the call before Daniel could answer. He took the elevator alone and drove himself, checking his phone at every red light for news from Lauren or the hospital.
At the next intersection, an unfamiliar number flashed across the screen. He answered through the car’s hands-free system.
“Ethan Ashford?”
“Who is this?”
“Stop digging into the mail.”
The caller’s voice was low and steady, stripped of anything Ethan could recognize.
“Who are you?”
“You’ve been warned.”
The call ended. Ethan gripped the wheel until the light changed, then drove on. The city slid past in gray winter smears: wet pavement, bus windows fogged with breath, bare trees clawing at the sky. He tried to decide what frightened him more—that somebody knew what he was doing, or that they had expected him not to.
At St. Vincent’s, the emergency entrance breathed out antiseptic air and the restless churn of people waiting for news. Ethan gave Hannah’s name at the desk. A nurse in navy scrubs checked a screen, then looked up.
“She was brought in after a traffic collision,” she said. “She’s alive. The doctors are evaluating her.”
The words loosened something in him and tightened something else. He had imagined dozens of reasons Hannah might be in a hospital; none had prepared him for the bluntness of collision.
“Can I see her?”
“She’s being monitored. I’ll check whether she’s able to receive visitors.”
“Please tell her I’m here.”
The nurse disappeared through a set of double doors. Ethan stood beneath the harsh lights, Hannah’s note folded in his pocket and the unknown caller’s warning still ringing in his head.
He wanted to call Lauren. He wanted to call Daniel back and demand an answer. Instead, he watched the doors.
May you like
When the nurse returned, her expression had changed.
“She woke briefly,” she said. “She asked whether you brought the first letter.”
