Chapter 3 - Room 3B)
Mason called it coincidence. Claire did not.
Private rooms had been renumbered when the hospital expanded, but an elderly nurse named Ruth confirmed that room 3B had existed in the original wing eleven years earlier. It had belonged to a long-term patient whose bills were paid through the Vale Foundation.
"Name?" Mason asked.
Ruth hesitated. "The records were sealed."
At Claire's insistence, Mason moved her to a guarded room under an alias. The transfer took place at 2:00 a.m. Nurses covered her with blankets and rolled the bed through service corridors. Every turn sent pain through her spine.
In the new room, Claire asked to see the recording from her phone.
Mason played it softly. Wind and rain obscured most words, but the crucial exchange survived.
Is she in the water?
I can't see her.
Then wait.
What if she's alive?
Then we finish what your father started.
There was also a sound Claire had not noticed: three metallic taps before the railing opened.
"Someone released a latch," Mason said.
"It was prepared."
"Yes."
"Then Ethan planned it."
Mason did not answer. Detectives preferred evidence to comfort.
At dawn, Claire received a call through the room phone. The caller did not speak. A faint melody played in the background, a music-box version of Blue Moon. Claire recognized it from Margaret's house. On the shelf in Ethan's childhood room stood a silver music box that played the same song.
"Who is this?"
A woman whispered, "The folder is bait."
The line went dead.
Mason traced the call to an internal hospital extension in the abandoned east wing.
Security footage showed no one entering that corridor.
By noon, Margaret had retained a famous defense attorney and refused further questions. Ethan had not been charged. The recording proved he was present, but his words could support his claim that he tried to help. Margaret's attempted murder, witnessed by officers, would keep her detained, yet it did not prove who sabotaged the balcony.
Claire needed facts only she could reach.
She remembered a cloud account Ethan believed she had closed. Months earlier, suspicious of unexplained withdrawals, she had linked their home scanner to it. Every document scanned in Ethan's study had been copied automatically.
Mason opened the account on a department laptop. There were insurance forms, corporate filings, and medical invoices. One invoice came from St. Agnes Private Hospital, the facility where Claire now lay. It listed recurring treatment for patient L.B., paid by Vale Holdings for six years after Laura supposedly disappeared.
"Laura Bell," Claire whispered.
The final payment had been made three months ago.
Mason summoned the hospital administrator. Dr. Howard Voss arrived sweating despite the cold room. He claimed L.B. was an unrelated patient and cited privacy laws.
Mason showed him a warrant application waiting for a judge's signature.
Voss sat down.
"There was a woman," he admitted. "She arrived without identification after a severe fall. Richard Vale said she was a relative who had attempted suicide. She had brain trauma and memory loss. The family paid for private neurological care."
"Where is she now?"
"Transferred."
"Where?"
"I don't know. Margaret handled it."
Claire asked, "Was she kept in room 3B?"
Voss looked at her cast, then at the closed door.
"Mrs. Holloway, before the wing was renovated, room 3B had restraints built into the bed. No windows. No call button. Whoever stayed there was not receiving ordinary care."
Mason leaned forward. "When was she admitted?"
May you like
Voss gave the date.
It was the morning after Laura Bell vanished.
