CHAPTER 2 THE MAN IN THE HOSPITAL BED
Mercy Grove Rehabilitation Center stood three counties away, hidden among pine-covered hills beyond the town of Bellweather.
I reached it shortly after sunrise.
My shirt was stained with dirt and blood, my ribs burned with every breath, and I had seventeen dollars left from the money the prison had given me upon release.
At the front desk, a nurse asked for my name.
“Adam Cole,” I said.
It felt strange using the name my father had written.
She checked her computer, then looked at me more carefully.
“Dr. Warren is expecting you.”
Those words chilled me.
My father had known I would come.
Or someone had told them I was already on my way.
Dr. Elise Warren met me in a private hallway near the east wing. She was in her late forties, with tired eyes and silver beginning to show in her dark hair.
“You look like Camden,” she said.
“Where is he?”
She glanced at the security camera above us.
“Not here.”
My hope collapsed so quickly that I had to steady myself against the wall.
“The photograph was taken here.”
“Yes.”
“Six months ago?”
“Yes.”
“Then where is he now?”
Dr. Warren opened a locked door and led me into a small office.
“Your father was brought here fourteen months ago under the name Adam Cole. He had suffered a serious head injury, two fractured ribs, and poisoning from an anticoagulant medication he had never been prescribed.”
“Someone tried to kill him.”
“Yes.”
“Who brought him here?”
“A private ambulance company. The paperwork claimed he had fallen in his home. But the injuries did not match a simple fall.”
“Was Reagan with him?”
“No. A man named Victor Hale signed the admission forms.”
The CFO.
The same man who had helped send me to prison.
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
“I did. The officer who arrived spoke privately with Mr. Hale. Afterward, the report described your father as confused and mentally unstable.”
“Was he?”
“He had memory loss. For several weeks, he could not remember his own address. But he was not delusional.”
She opened a drawer and removed a small recorder.
“Once his memory began returning, he asked me to document everything.”
She pressed play.
My father’s voice filled the room.
It was weak, but unmistakable.
“Finnley did not steal from me. Victor changed the audit files. Carter gave him access. Reagan signed documents while I was unconscious. They believe I do not remember. I remember more each day.”
I covered my mouth.
For three years, I had heard my father’s voice only in dreams.
Now he was speaking from a cheap recorder, telling the truth no one had believed.
The recording continued.
“If anything happens to me, my son must find the Hawthorne ledger. It proves where the money went. It also proves Victor has been stealing from other companies for years.”
Dr. Warren stopped the recording.
“What is the Hawthorne ledger?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Where did my father go?”
Her expression changed.
“Eight months ago, men arrived with legal documents signed by Reagan. They claimed she had medical power of attorney and requested his transfer to a private care facility.”
“And you let them take him?”
“I tried to stop them. The documents appeared legitimate. A judge had approved the transfer.”
“Which facility?”
“St. Gabriel’s Long-Term Care.”
I stood.
“Give me the address.”
“It no longer exists.”
I stared at her.
“The building closed three months before your father was supposedly transferred there.”
The room seemed to shrink around me.
“Then who took him?”
“I believe Victor Hale did.”
A knock sounded at the door.
Dr. Warren froze.
Another knock.
“Dr. Warren?” a male voice called. “Security needs you at reception.”
She turned off the recorder and handed it to me.
“Take this.”
“What about you?”
“Go through the service exit. Now.”
The door handle moved.
She shoved me toward a second door at the back of the office.
I entered a narrow supply corridor and heard the office door open behind me.
“Doctor,” a man said calmly, “we understand Finnley Dennis may have contacted you.”
I stopped.
The voice was familiar.
Detective Nolan Briggs.
He had led the investigation against me three years ago.
At my trial, Briggs testified that my behavior proved I was guilty. He said innocent men did not become angry during questioning.
I had become angry because he refused to examine Carter’s accounts.
Dr. Warren answered steadily.
“I haven’t seen him.”
“We have information that he assaulted two men last night.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Helping a convicted felon could cost you your medical license.”
I slipped through the service exit and emerged behind the building.
A dark sedan waited near the loading dock.
Its engine was running.
I moved along the wall, but the driver’s door opened.
Carter stepped out.
He looked different from the arrogant gambler I remembered. His suit was expensive. His hair was carefully styled. But his eyes were restless.
“You should have listened to Mom,” he said.
“She isn’t my mother.”
“Fine. My mother.”
“Where’s my father?”
Carter smiled.
“You always ask the wrong question.”
He pulled a gun from beneath his jacket.
I lifted my hands.
“You framed me.”
“You were easy to frame. Everyone knew Camden preferred you. Everyone knew I owed money. No one imagined I would be stupid enough to steal through my own computer.”
“Victor changed the evidence.”
“Victor changes whatever needs changing.”
“Did you kill my father?”
For the first time, Carter’s smile disappeared.
“No.”
“Then where is he?”
Carter looked toward the building.
“You think you’re here to rescue him. You don’t understand. Camden wasn’t hiding from us.”
He raised the gun.
“He was hiding from you.”
Before he could fire, Dr. Warren’s car alarm erupted across the parking lot.
Carter flinched.
I lunged.
We struck the side of the sedan. The gun discharged into the air. I drove my elbow into his wrist and the weapon slid beneath the car.
Carter punched my injured ribs. Pain exploded through me.
Then security guards came running from the building.
Carter shoved me away and jumped into the sedan.
As he sped off, he shouted through the open window.
“Ask your father what happened to your mother!”
The car disappeared down the hill.
I stood in the parking lot, unable to breathe.
My mother had died when I was twelve.
My father had always said it was a highway accident.
Until that moment, I had never questioned him.
Dr. Warren reached me moments later.
“Finnley, there’s something else you need to see.”
She led me back inside after Detective Briggs had left.
From a locked cabinet, she removed a sealed envelope.
“Your father wrote this the night before he was taken.”
Inside was another photograph.
It showed my father standing beside a burned vehicle.
My mother’s vehicle.
May you like
On the back, he had written only seven words.
The crash was never meant for her.
