Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN IN ROOM 814
The anonymous emails stopped.
But twenty-four hours later, a handwritten note arrived beneath Mia’s hospital-room door.
ROOM 814.
COME ALONE.
Noah hated the idea immediately.
Mia hated it too.
They went together anyway.
Room 814 was officially vacant.
No medical equipment had been prepared.
No patient name appeared on the digital display outside.
Noah opened the door slowly.
A woman stood at the window.
Early forties.
Dark hair.
Gray coat.
She turned.
And Noah stopped.
Her eyes were almost identical to his father’s.
“My name is Lena Ward,” she said.
Noah did not answer.
“I sent the emails.”
“Who are you?”
Lena looked directly at him.
“Daniel Hale was my father too.”
Mia looked at Noah.
His face had gone completely still.
“No.”
Lena gave a small, sad smile.
“That was my reaction when my mother told me.”
She reached into her bag.
Noah moved instinctively in front of Mia.
Lena froze.
“It’s paperwork.”
She slowly removed a folder.
Inside was a birth certificate.
Then photographs.
Daniel Hale holding a newborn girl.
Daniel with Lena’s mother.
Daniel standing beside Lena at a high-school graduation.
Noah’s hands tightened.
“My father had another family?”
“No.”
Lena shook her head.
“My mother never considered herself his family. They had an affair before he married your mother.”
Noah stared at the pictures.
“He knew about you?”
“Yes.”
“Why did no one tell me?”
“Because Daniel wanted to protect me from Grant Vale.”
That name changed the room.
Lena continued.
“When your father discovered money disappearing from employee retirement accounts, he started investigating Grant.”
“He should have gone to police.”
“He planned to.”
“What happened?”
“He died.”
Noah looked at her.
Lena’s voice became quieter.
“Three days before his death, he gave my mother a set of records.”
“The ledger?”
“Part of it.”
“He said if anything happened to him, we were supposed to wait.”
“For what?”
“The next Hale heir.”
Mia instinctively touched her stomach.
Lena nodded.
“He believed Grant had corrupted people inside the company, inside law firms, even inside medical offices.”
Noah glanced toward Mia.
“Parker.”
“Yes.”
Lena looked at Mia.
“Daniel discovered that Elaine Parker had altered documents connected to executive insurance policies. He suspected she was helping Grant hide financial transactions.”
“Was my father murdered?”
Lena took a long breath.
“I can’t prove it.”
“Then what can you prove?”
“That his autopsy file was changed after his death.”
Noah’s face hardened.
Lena handed him another document.
“There were two pathology summaries.”
“One official.”
“One hidden.”
Mia read the second.
It did not state a cause of death.
It merely indicated several abnormalities inconsistent with Daniel’s medical history and recommended additional testing.
The recommendation had never been completed.
“Who stopped it?” Noah asked.
Lena answered.
“Grant Vale.”
Noah looked toward the window.
For years he had grieved his father.
Now grief was becoming something else.
A question.
A weapon.
A door.
Mia asked the most important thing.
“Why wait until now?”
Lena looked at her.
“Because somebody found me three weeks ago.”
“Who?”
“Scarlett.”
Noah turned.
Lena’s face tightened.
“She offered me five million dollars to leave the country permanently.”
“And if you refused?”
“She said my existence would destroy Noah’s mother.”
“My mother has been dead six years.”
“I told her that.”
Lena looked at him.
“Then Scarlett said, ‘Dead people can still lose their reputations.’”
Noah felt disgust twist through him.
“What did she want from you?”
“The records.”
“Did you give them to her?”
“No.”
“Where are they?”
Lena hesitated.
“I split them into three parts.”
“The first account. Second account. Third account.”
“Yes.”
“Where is the third?”
“I don’t know.”
Noah stared.
“That makes no sense.”
“Your father hid it himself.”
Lena turned toward Mia.
“He told my mother that when the next Hale child was born, the final location would become obvious.”
Mia frowned.
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
A noise sounded outside.
Footsteps.
Then silence.
Noah immediately went to the door.
The hallway was empty.
But something lay on the floor.
A hospital identification badge.
Dr. Elaine Parker.
Attached to it was a small strip of paper.
YOU WERE WARNED.
Lena’s face changed.
“We have to leave.”
Noah reached for his phone.
The lights went out.
Mia gasped.
Emergency lighting flickered on.
Then the fire alarm began screaming.
People rushed into the hallway.
Nurses.
Patients.
Orderlies.
Noah grabbed Mia’s hand.
“Stay with me.”
In the confusion, Lena disappeared.
Noah shouted her name.
No answer.
By the time hospital security restored order, Room 814 was empty.
The folder was gone.
May you like
Lena was gone.
And on the floor beneath the window lay a single drop of blood.
