Chapter 6 - TWO PHONES
I checked the message again after Lily fell asleep.
There was no signature, only a number I had once called a hundred times a day.
Marcus’s old phone number.
He had changed it after the hospital claimed there had been a security breach.
At the time I had accepted the explanation without thinking.
Now I drove to the hospital parking garage and sat beneath a flickering light until David arrived.
He looked exhausted.
“We should talk somewhere with cameras,” he said.
“Are you afraid of me?”
“I’m afraid of whoever has been sending these messages.”
He showed me a notice from the hospital’s compliance office.
An internal review had begun after researchers reported unusual access to the transplant registry.
Marcus’s credentials appeared repeatedly in the logs.
So did David’s.
“Did you access my records?”
“Never.”
“Then who did?”
“We don’t know yet.”
He paused.
“But we know a workstation on the sixth floor was used after midnight.”
I remembered all the nights Marcus supposedly worked late.
A car passed slowly through the garage.
David waited until it was gone.
“Marcus’s leave wasn't the only reason he stayed away from home.”
“Then tell me the rest.”
“He kept coming here because he thought somebody was going to hurt Daniel.”
I watched him carefully.
“Do you believe that?”
“I believe he believed it.”
David admitted that Marcus had hired an outside investigator after discovering inconsistent blood compatibility results.
The investigator, a woman named Nora Kim, had disappeared from contact three days earlier.
He gave me her business card.
I called from the parking lot.
A voice answered after four rings.
“Claire Bennett?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t go home.”
My skin went cold.
“Why?”
The woman on the line spoke rapidly.
“Someone has already been inside your house.”
At that exact moment, a motion alert appeared on my phone.
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The hallway camera at home showed a man in a dark coat standing outside Lily’s bedroom door.
