Chapter 2 - The Red Stone
The police arrived forty minutes after the surgeon left.
By then, Lily had been taken upstairs for emergency surgery, and I was sitting alone beneath the fluorescent lights with her blood drying on the cuff of my shirt.
Detective Paul Harlan introduced himself without looking me in the eye.
He was a broad man in his late fifties with thinning gray hair, a university security badge clipped beside his city police identification. The arrangement bothered me immediately.
“You work for Bradley University?” I asked.
“I’m assigned to campus-related investigations.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
His mouth tightened.
“I coordinate with university security.”
A second detective stood behind him. Elena Ruiz. Younger than Harlan, perhaps thirty-five. Dark hair pulled back, sharp eyes, no wasted movement.
Unlike Harlan, she looked directly at the evidence bag containing Lily’s torn hoodie.
“Mr. Mercer,” Harlan said, opening a notebook, “we need to establish your daughter’s recent activities. Boyfriends, parties, alcohol, disagreements—”
“My daughter’s jaw is broken in six places.”
“I understand that.”
“No, you don’t.”
He paused.
Ruiz watched me carefully.
“Was Lily dating anyone?” Harlan continued.
“No.”
“You’re certain?”
“I’m her father, not her jailer. But we talk.”
“Any reason she might have been near the science building after ten?”
“She studies environmental chemistry. Her laboratory is in that building.”
Harlan wrote something down.
“What exactly did campus security find?” I asked.
“Your daughter was discovered near the east service entrance at approximately eleven twelve.”
“By whom?”
“A patrol officer.”
“What was his name?”
“We’re still collecting statements.”
“You know the time but not the officer’s name?”
Harlan closed his notebook.
“These investigations take time.”
I had heard that sentence before.
In Kandahar, it meant someone had lost paperwork. In Mosul, it meant a commander wanted a problem buried. In civilian life, it apparently meant the same thing.
Ruiz stepped closer to the evidence bag.
“Was anything missing from your daughter?” she asked.
I thought of Lily lying beneath those bandages.
“Her phone?”
“Recovered beside her.”
“Wallet?”
“In her backpack.”
Then I remembered the necklace.
Lily had worn it every day since her mother died. A small silver moon on a delicate chain. Inside the crescent was a tiny blue stone from Anne’s engagement ring.
“She had a necklace.”
Harlan checked a page.
“No necklace was listed.”
“She never removed it.”
“Maybe it broke during the attack.”
“Then where is it?”
“We’ll ask the evidence team.”
His answer came too quickly.
I stood.
Harlan’s hand moved toward his belt—not his weapon, but near enough to tell me what kind of man he was.
Ruiz noticed it too.
“Mr. Mercer,” she said calmly, “did Lily mention feeling threatened?”
I started to say no.
Then I remembered our last phone call.
Three nights earlier, Lily had asked me whether powerful people could erase something from the internet forever.
I had laughed softly and told her nothing truly disappeared anymore.
At the time, I thought she was talking about an embarrassing photograph.
Now the memory felt like a hand closing around my throat.
“She asked me about deleting files,” I said.
Harlan looked up.
“What kind of files?”
“She didn’t say.”
“Did she mention names?”
“No.”
“Then it may not be relevant.”
“It’s relevant to me.”
Ruiz took out her own notebook.
“What exactly did she ask?”
I repeated Lily’s words.
Can powerful people erase something forever?
Ruiz wrote them down.
Harlan did not.
A nurse appeared at the end of the corridor and told me Lily’s first surgery had begun. They were stabilizing her jaw with titanium plates and wires. The operation could take four hours.
Four hours.
Four hours while strangers drilled into my daughter’s bones because someone had decided her life meant nothing.
Harlan gave me his card.
“Go home when you can. We’ll contact you.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“I mean after the surgery.”
“I’m still not leaving.”
He exhaled through his nose.
“Mr. Mercer, I know you have a military background.”
My eyes narrowed.
“How do you know that?”
“Routine records check.”
“You ran a records check on me before interviewing me?”
“We check everyone.”
“My daughter is the victim.”
“No one said otherwise.”
But the way he spoke told me he had already begun constructing a different story.
A reckless student. A secret boyfriend. A late-night argument. An unfortunate assault without witnesses.
Anything except the truth.
Ruiz remained after Harlan walked away.
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then she lowered her voice.
“Was your daughter wearing any rings?”
“No.”
“Did she ever mention a red stone?”
The question was so unexpected that I stared at her.
“No. Why?”
Ruiz glanced toward the hallway where Harlan had disappeared.
“The first campus incident report contained a sentence that isn’t in the official copy.”
“What sentence?”
She hesitated.
“Before losing consciousness, your daughter grabbed the patrol officer’s sleeve.”
My heart started pounding.
“What did she say?”
“She couldn’t speak clearly. According to the original report, she repeated two words.”
Ruiz looked me straight in the eye.
“Red stone.”
Before I could ask another question, she stepped away.
“Detective.”
She stopped.
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That’s not why you’re leaving.”
Her expression hardened.
“No. It isn’t.”
Then she walked down the corridor and disappeared through the double doors.
At three thirty in the morning, the surgeon returned.
The operation had gone as planned.
Lily was alive.
She was stable.
But when they brought me into recovery, she looked smaller than I had ever seen her. Metal supports held her jaw in place. Machines breathed and clicked around her. Her right hand rested outside the blanket.
I sat beside her and wrapped my fingers around it.
“I’m here,” I whispered. “You’re safe.”
Her eyelids trembled.
Slowly, painfully, she opened one eye.
I told her not to move. Not to try to speak.
Her fingers tightened around mine.
Then she lifted her hand and dragged one trembling fingertip across my palm.
A line.
Then a circle.
Then another line.
I did not understand.
She tried again.
A circle.
A line through it.
Then she tapped my wedding ring.
“Ring?” I whispered.
One blink.
Yes.
“What kind of ring?”
Her pulse climbed on the monitor.
A nurse moved toward us, but Lily gripped me harder.
With one finger, she traced a shape against the blanket.
An oval.
Then she pointed toward the blood-darkened hoodie in the evidence bag outside the room.
I leaned closer.
“A red stone?”
Her eye filled with tears.
One blink.
Yes.
“Did the person who hurt you wear it?”
Lily’s breathing quickened.
One blink.
Then she did something that turned my blood cold.
She held up three fingers.
Not one attacker.
Three.
May you like
And before the nurse could sedate her, Lily traced one final letter into my palm.
C.
