Chapter 8 - the doctor beside ethan’s bed)
Crane wore hospital scrubs and an identification badge.
For a second, Ethan wondered whether he was dreaming.
Then Crane locked the door.
“You should not have stopped the medication so quickly.”
Ethan tried to pull his hand away.
Crane tightened his grip.
“What are you doing here?”
“Helping you.”
“You lied.”
“I followed your father’s instructions.”
“That’s worse.”
Crane flinched.
Then he lowered his voice.
“You think this is simple because you’re a child.”
Ethan hated those words.
Adults used them whenever children noticed something adults wanted hidden.
“My mother is alive.”
Crane looked toward the door.
“I don’t know.”
“You treated her.”
“I treated many patients.”
“You helped my dad hide her.”
Crane released Ethan’s wrist.
“I made choices I regret.”
“Then tell the police.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because your father kept records on everyone.”
Ethan stared.
Crane sat beside the bed.
He suddenly looked older than Ethan remembered.
“He owned people through secrets. Debts. Affairs. Crimes. Mistakes. He never asked for loyalty. He purchased fear.”
“You’re afraid of him.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you here?”
Crane reached into his pocket.
Ethan recoiled.
But Crane removed a small flash drive.
“Because he is going to kill the last person who can prove what happened.”
“Who?”
“Samuel Reeves.”
Ethan’s pulse quickened.
“Reeves disappeared.”
“Charles took him.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I helped arrange it.”
Ethan reached for the call button again.
Crane stopped him.
“If security comes before I finish, Reeves dies.”
Ethan froze.
Crane explained.
After Amelia’s escape from the clinic three years earlier, Charles became obsessed with controlling every witness.
Reeves had refused money.
So Charles destroyed his career.
Danielle had disappeared before Charles could find her.
Amelia remained hidden.
Then, four months ago, Charles learned someone had accessed archived Vale medical files.
He suspected Amelia.
Crane was ordered to locate Reeves.
Two weeks earlier, Charles’s men abducted him.
They were holding him at an abandoned rehabilitation center owned by a Vale subsidiary.
“Why didn’t you stop them?”
Crane looked ashamed.
“Cowardice.”
“And now?”
“Now Charles has vanished, which means he’s moving Reeves.”
Crane gave Ethan the flash drive.
“Everything is there. Addresses. payments. names.”
“Why give it to me?”
“Because prosecutors will watch me. Charles will watch me. Nobody expects a ten-year-old boy to be the person who destroys them.”
Ethan stared at him.
“You already destroyed yourself.”
Crane nodded.
“Yes.”
Then someone knocked.
“Dr. Shah?”
Crane’s face changed.
“That isn’t Shah.”
The handle moved.
Locked.
Crane stood.
“Call security.”
Ethan pressed the button.
The door slammed inward.
A man entered.
Dark jacket.
Gloves.
Crane pushed Ethan’s bed toward the wall.
The stranger lunged.
Crane grabbed him.
They crashed into a chair.
Ethan shouted.
Nurses screamed outside.
The attacker pulled something metallic from his coat.
Crane struck his arm.
The object clattered beneath the bed.
A knife.
Security rushed in.
The attacker fled through the bathroom, climbed onto a maintenance ledge, and disappeared down an emergency stairwell.
Crane collapsed against the wall.
Blood darkened his sleeve.
The knife had cut him.
Not deeply.
But enough.
He looked at Ethan.
“Now you understand.”
Police took Crane into custody for questioning.
The flash drive changed the case.
Financial transfers connected Charles to the crash vehicle.
Emails linked Crane to altered medical records.
Security records showed Amelia had been kept under a false name in a private clinic for seventeen days after the accident.
Then she escaped.
There were also recent payments to a property called Northbridge Rehabilitation Center.
The building had closed eight years earlier.
Police moved that night.
Maya refused to tell Ethan details until morning.
When she finally entered his room, her expression made him sit upright.
“They found Reeves.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Ethan exhaled.
“And my dad?”
“No.”
“Was he there?”
“Recently.”
Reeves had been found locked inside a treatment room.
Dehydrated.
Bruised.
But alive.
He told police Charles had questioned him repeatedly about Amelia.
Charles wanted to know where she was.
Reeves did not know.
But before Charles left Northbridge, he received a phone call.
Reeves overheard part of the conversation.
Charles said, “If the Brooks woman has the ledger, take care of both of them.”
Mabel.
And possibly Danielle.
Nia was brought to the hospital.
Maya told her everything.
Nia’s face became white with fear.
“Both of them?”
Reeves believed Charles might know Danielle was alive.
Nia stared at the floor.
Then she suddenly ran toward the door.
Ethan caught her hand.
“Where are you going?”
“To find my grandma.”
“You can’t.”
“I have to.”
“Police are looking.”
“They’ve been looking for days.”
“Nia.”
“She saved me my whole life.”
Ethan understood.
He looked at Maya.
“We need to know what the ledger is.”
Maya nodded.
“Reeves said Amelia mentioned it once.”
“What is it?”
“A handwritten record Charles kept before he moved everything digital. Payments. Bribes. Names. If it exists, it could prove crimes going back twenty years.”
Nia wiped her face.
“My grandma said Amelia gave her something before she disappeared.”
“Did you see it?”
“No.”
“Where would Mabel hide something important?”
Nia thought.
May you like
Then looked at Ethan.
“In church.”
