Chapter 9 - The Empty Bed at Rosewood
Rosewood Memory Residence looked too peaceful to hold a secret.
White columns.
Trimmed hedges.
Wind chimes beneath the porch.
A fountain shaped like two children holding hands.
Tessa hated it immediately.
Detective Monroe parked beside an ambulance.
Abigail had been ordered to remain at the hospital.
She had ignored that order.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Monroe said for the fourth time.
“It’s my grandmother.”
“You’re eight months pregnant.”
“And somebody tried to kill me.”
“That is not an argument for coming.”
“It is to me.”
Tessa opened the passenger door.
“She stays beside me.”
Monroe muttered something under his breath.
They entered Rosewood together.
The administrator, a woman named Dana Pierce, met them in the lobby.
When Monroe showed his badge, her smile disappeared.
“We need to see Eleanor Hart.”
Dana glanced toward Abigail.
“Mrs. Hart isn’t accepting visitors.”
“This isn’t a social call.”
“I understand, Detective, but—”
“Take us to her room.”
Dana hesitated.
That was enough.
Monroe stepped closer.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You looked scared.”
“I’m not.”
“Then take us upstairs.”
Room 217 was at the end of a carpeted hall.
Dana opened the door.
An elderly woman lay beneath a pale blue blanket.
Silver hair.
Thin hands.
Oxygen tube.
Eyes closed.
Abigail stopped.
“That’s not her.”
Dana turned.
“What?”
“That woman is not my grandmother.”
Tessa stared at the bed.
Dana’s face went white.
“I don’t understand.”
Abigail walked closer.
“My grandmother broke her left ring finger when she was a child. It never healed straight.”
She lifted the sleeping woman’s hand.
Every finger was straight.
Monroe reached for his phone.
“Lock down the building.”
Dana backed toward the door.
“I had nothing to do with this.”
“Nobody accused you yet.”
“You were about to.”
Tessa looked around the room.
No personal photographs.
No family possessions.
Nothing that belonged to a wealthy woman who had supposedly lived there for four years.
“Who is she?” Tessa asked.
Dana started crying.
“I don’t know.”
Monroe stared at her.
“That’s a terrible answer.”
“They brought her here eight months ago.”
“Who?”
“Private medical transport.”
“And Eleanor?”
Dana covered her mouth.
“She left.”
“Walked out?”
“No.”
“With who?”
“I was told the family approved it.”
Abigail’s voice hardened.
“I am the family.”
Dana looked at her.
“The authorization came from Hart Biotech.”
Tessa turned.
“Who signed it?”
Dana did not answer.
Monroe repeated the question.
Finally, she whispered:
“Caleb Mercer.”
Abigail stepped back as if struck.
Tessa had heard the name before.
Caleb Mercer was Abigail’s godfather.
Samuel Hart’s closest friend.
Chairman of Hart Biotech.
The man who had stood beside Abigail at her father’s funeral.
The man who had arranged her security after the attack.
The man who had recommended Grant Holloway’s arrest.
Abigail shook her head.
“No.”
Tessa looked at her.
“You know him.”
“He practically raised me.”
Monroe’s expression became grim.
“Apparently he raised a lot of questions too.”
Dana led them to an office downstairs.
Security records showed a private ambulance removing Eleanor Hart at 2:12 a.m. eight months earlier.
The video had no sound.
A man wearing medical scrubs pushed a wheelchair.
Eleanor sat upright.
She did not look confused.
She looked angry.
Before the wheelchair disappeared beyond the camera, Eleanor turned.
Directly toward the lens.
And lifted one hand.
Four fingers.
Then two.
Then one.
Tessa frowned.
“What is she doing?”
Abigail stared.
“That’s not random.”
“You recognize it?”
“My father used number codes.”
Monroe leaned closer.
“What does four-two-one mean?”
Abigail thought.
Then her face changed.
“Warehouse 421.”
“Where?”
“Baltimore.”
Hart Biotech owned dozens of storage buildings near the harbor.
Warehouse 421 had supposedly been abandoned after a chemical leak nine years earlier.
They left Rosewood immediately.
Halfway to Baltimore, Tessa’s phone vibrated.
A text from an unknown number.
DON’T GO TO 421.
She showed Monroe.
He looked at the road.
“Evelyn?”
“I don’t know.”
Another message arrived.
CALEB WANTS YOU THERE.
A third.
THE WAREHOUSE IS A TRAP.
Abigail whispered, “Then where do we go?”
Tessa typed:
WHERE IS ELEANOR?
The reply came almost immediately.
SHE ISN’T YOUR REAL PROBLEM.
Tessa typed again.
WHO IS?
Three dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
Appeared again.
The answer finally arrived.
THE PERSON WHO ORDERED MAYA’S DEATH.
Tessa’s heart hammered.
WHO?
The response contained only an address.
A church outside Annapolis.
Monroe turned the car south.
They arrived thirty-five minutes later.
The church had been abandoned for years.
Broken windows.
Peeling white paint.
Dead vines climbing the bell tower.
Tessa entered first.
“Evelyn?”
No answer.
A single candle burned near the altar.
Beside it sat a brown envelope.
Tessa opened it.
Inside were photographs.
Maya.
Samuel Hart.
Caleb Mercer.
And another woman.
Abigail.
But the photograph was impossible.
Abigail appeared to be meeting Maya outside a coffee shop.
The timestamp showed it had been taken eleven years earlier.
Abigail would have been nineteen.
She stared at the photograph.
“I never met her.”
Tessa looked at her.
“You’re in the picture.”
“I know.”
“You’re talking to my sister.”
“I don’t remember this.”
Tessa felt something fracture inside her.
Abigail’s eyes filled with panic.
“Tessa, I swear.”
Behind them, the church door slammed.
Monroe drew his weapon.
A man stood in the entrance.
Blood covered the front of his shirt.
Grant Holloway.
He lifted both hands.
“Don’t shoot.”
Abigail stared.
“Grant?”
He collapsed to his knees.
Monroe rushed forward.
Grant grabbed his sleeve.
“Caleb knows.”
“Knows what?”
Grant looked past Monroe.
Straight at Abigail.
“That she remembered.”
Abigail stopped breathing.
“Remembered what?”
May you like
Grant’s face twisted with fear.
“The night Maya Quinn died.”
