Chapter 3: Room 114
Marcus said 114 without hesitating, which told me he'd already been thinking about it.
I walked.
Not fast.
Not slow.
The kind of pace that doesn't draw attention in a hospital hallway at six in the morning.
The door to Room 114 was half open.
I could hear a man's voice before I reached it.
"—just want to make sure we have your statement right.
You said you didn't see anything clearly.
That it was dark."
I stepped into the doorway.
The deputy was young.
Mid-twenties.
Dale Vance's jaw, Dale Vance's eyes.
He was sitting in the chair beside the bed with a notepad on his knee, leaning forward in a way that filled the room.
The girl on the bed was small.
Dark hair pulled back.
She had her knees drawn up to her chest and both arms wrapped around them.
Her mother was standing against the wall with her hands clasped together so tightly her knuckles had gone pale.
The deputy looked up at me.
"Sir, this is a private—"
"I can see that," I said.
I looked at the girl.
She looked back at me.
Her eyes moved to the deputy, then back to me.
"My name is Caleb," I said.
"I'm Ethan's father."
Her chin moved.
Just slightly.
"You don't have to answer any questions right now," I said.
"You have that right."
The deputy stood up.
He was taller than I expected, and he used it.
"I'm going to need you to step out.
This is an official—"
"She's sixteen," I said.
"Her mother hasn't consented to a formal interview.
You don't have a recorder running, you don't have a second officer present, and you're not in uniform." I looked at the notepad in his hand.
"Whatever you're writing down right now isn't going to hold up."
The mother's hands came apart.
"Is that true?" she said.
The deputy's jaw tightened.
"Ma'am, I'm just trying to get the facts before—"
"Before what?" I said.
He looked at me for a long moment.
"You should be careful," he said quietly.
"My father is the sheriff of this county."
"I know who your father is."
Something shifted in his face.
He couldn't place me.
That was clear.
He was trying to, and he couldn't.
He picked up his notepad and walked past me without another word.
His shoulder came close to mine in the doorway.
He didn't touch me.
He thought about it.
Then he was gone.
The mother let out a breath that sounded like it had been held for an hour.
"Thank you," she said.
"He's been in here for twenty minutes.
I didn't know if I could ask him to leave."
"You could have," I said.
"You can always ask them to leave."
I looked at the girl.
"What's your name?"
"Jade," she said.
Her voice was steadier than I expected.
"Jade.
I'm not going to ask you anything tonight.
You've been through enough." I pulled a card from my wallet — not the courthouse ID, the other one, the one with nothing on it but a number.
"If anyone comes back and you want them to stop, you call that number.
Someone will answer."
She took the card with two fingers and looked at it.
"Who are you?" she said.
"Right now, I'm just a father."
I left before she could ask anything else.
Marcus was waiting at the end of the hallway.
He fell into step beside me.
"The deputy's going to call his father," he said.
"I know."
"Dale Vance is going to know someone interfered."
"Good."
Marcus stopped walking.
"Caleb." His voice dropped.
"Dale Vance had a county judge sign a gag order this morning.
On the incident.
On Ethan.
On everything." He paused.
"I found out twenty minutes ago.
I don't know how he moved that fast."
I kept walking.
"He's done this before," I said.
Marcus caught up.
"How do you know that?"
"Because a man doesn't laugh while a seventeen-year-old screams unless he's certain nothing is going to happen to him."
The elevator opened.
I stepped in.
"Get Ethan's surgical records copied," I said.
"All of them.
Tonight."
The doors closed.
Somewhere in this building, a sixteen-year-old girl was holding a phone with a video on it that Dale Vance needed to disappear.
And Dale Vance now knew someone was standing between him and that phone.
By the time I reached the lobby, my own phone was already buzzing.
The name on the screen was one I hadn't seen in eleven years.
*Special Agent R.
May you like
Holloway.
FBI.*
