Chapter 4 - The Fourth Voice
The observation room was empty when police entered it.
The door had been locked from the inside.
There were no windows large enough for a person to escape through, no ceiling access, and no second exit.
Only a chair faced the one-way glass.
On the chair rested a small wireless transmitter.
Reyes placed it inside an evidence bag.
“Someone mirrored Lily’s phone and cloud account,” she said. “They may have been monitoring every device connected to her.”
Daniel looked toward the ceiling.
“Can they hear us now?”
“Assume they can.”
Dr. Ward transferred Lily to a private intensive care room under an alias. Only four people received the new location: Daniel, Reyes, Ward, and the head ICU nurse.
Within twenty minutes, a bouquet of white lilies arrived at the room.
There was no sender’s name.
The card read:
SILENCE IS MERCY.
The hospital bomb unit examined the flowers. Nothing dangerous was found.
But hidden beneath the ribbon was a microcamera.
Reyes ordered the entire floor searched.
Daniel sat beside Lily while technicians swept the room for electronic devices. Her breathing remained controlled by the ventilator. The bruising around her eyes had darkened overnight.
He held her fingers and spoke softly.
“You did the right thing.”
Lily did not move.
“You found something, and you tried to expose it. I know you were scared.”
He swallowed.
“I should have known.”
The heart monitor continued its steady rhythm.
Daniel thought about the weeks before the assault.
Lily had stopped calling every evening. When she did call, she sounded distracted. She told him classes were demanding. She said she was spending extra time in the library.
One weekend, she came home unexpectedly.
She had washed every item of clothing she brought with her and refused to explain why. Daniel had noticed a bruise on her wrist. Lily said she had walked into a door.
He had wanted to believe her.
Believing was easier than asking again.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Her index finger moved.
Barely.
Daniel leaned closer.
“Lily?”
Her finger traced something against his palm.
A line.
Another line.
Then a circle.
He could not understand.
She tried again.
Two lines.
A circle.
The effort caused her heart rate to increase.
“Stop. You don’t have to.”
Her finger pressed once into his palm.
Then went still.
Daniel drew the symbol on a notepad.
It resembled a circle divided by two vertical lines.
Reyes returned an hour later.
She recognized it immediately.
“That is the Westbridge Founders’ Seal.”
Daniel had seen the seal on university banners. It was printed on Lily’s acceptance package and engraved above the main campus gate.
“What does it mean?”
“The public version honors the university’s three founding families.”
“The Hales?”
“One of them.”
Reyes searched through photographs on her phone.
The seal contained three pillars inside a circle. Beneath them was a Latin phrase.
ORDO SUPER OMNIA.
Order above all.
“The three pillars represent Hale, Cross, and Vale,” Reyes said.
Daniel looked at her.
“Bryce Hale. Mason Cross. Connor Vale.”
“Their families founded the university more than a century ago.”
“And Lily was investigating them.”
“Possibly.”
“Why?”
Reyes sat beside the window.
“Six years ago, my younger sister attended Westbridge.”
Daniel waited.
“She left after one semester. She never told us why. She developed panic attacks, stopped sleeping, and refused to walk past buildings with security cameras.”
“What happened to her?”
“She died two years later.”
Daniel’s voice softened.
“I’m sorry.”
Reyes looked at Lily.
“Her death was ruled an overdose. I believed it.”
“You don’t anymore.”
“No.”
She removed an old photograph from her wallet. A young woman stood in front of the Westbridge library, smiling into the camera.
Around her neck was a silver pendant.
The same divided-circle symbol Lily had drawn.
“My sister mailed this photograph to me three days before she left school,” Reyes said. “On the back, she wrote one sentence.”
She turned it over.
THE FOURTH PILLAR HAS NO NAME.
Daniel reread the words.
“The symbol has three pillars.”
“The official one does.”
Reyes enlarged a photograph of the Founders’ Seal.
Beneath the three visible pillars, hidden in the decorative shadowing, was a fourth shape.
Narrow.
Almost erased.
“The three families may not be in control,” Reyes said. “They may be protecting someone.”
Dr. Ward entered quickly.
“Lily’s latest blood results came back.”
Daniel stood.
“What is it?”
“We found traces of a sedative in her system. It is not one we administered.”
“Could it explain why she looked intoxicated on the security footage?” Reyes asked.
“Yes.”
“Can you identify it?”
“Midazolam. Usually given in hospitals or procedural settings.”
Daniel looked around the room.
“Someone drugged her.”
“Before she fell,” Dr. Ward said. “The concentration suggests she received a controlled dose approximately thirty to forty minutes before admission.”
Reyes wrote it down.
“Could a student obtain it?”
“Not easily.”
“But a medical professional could.”
Dr. Ward’s face changed.
“So could someone with access to this hospital.”
Before Daniel could respond, the ventilator alarm sounded.
Lily’s oxygen level dropped.
Ward rushed to the bed.
A nurse entered.
The ventilator tube had become obstructed.
Dr. Ward removed the blockage with suction.
A small piece of folded plastic emerged.
Inside it was a strip of paper no wider than a fingernail.
Reyes opened it with forceps.
A message had been inserted into Lily’s breathing tube.
It contained six words.
May you like
THE DOCTOR IS NOT YOUR FRIEND.
Daniel slowly turned toward Dr. Ward.
