Chapter 3 - SOMEONE WANTED MY CHILDREN
The transfer request had been submitted at 2:08 in the morning.
Claire had collapsed at 1:32.
That meant someone waited thirty-six minutes after poisoning my wife before trying to move our newborn children.
Thirty-six minutes.
Long enough to believe Claire might die.
Long enough to assume I would be too distracted to notice.
Long enough to prepare the next step.
Detective Ortiz stood beside the nurses' station examining the transfer record.
“Where does it go?”
“Magnolia Children's Recovery Center,” the charge nurse said.
“I've never heard of it.”
“You wouldn't.”
We both looked at her.
“It doesn't exist.”
The nurse enlarged the address.
“It's a commercial building outside the city. No neonatal unit. No pediatric license.”
My hands curled into fists.
“What happens if the transfer had been approved?”
“A transport team would arrive.”
“And my children would simply be handed over?”
“Not without verification.”
“But someone thought they could get them.”
The nurse lowered her eyes.
“Yes.”
Detective Ortiz immediately called for additional officers.
Within ten minutes, police controlled the floor.
Nobody entered or left without identification.
The hospital shut down electronic transfer privileges for all three babies.
Ortiz contacted another team to investigate the fake facility.
Then she turned to me.
“You need to stay here.”
“No.”
“That wasn't a suggestion.”
“You have officers protecting my children. Daniel is somewhere outside.”
“We don't know that Daniel did this.”
I pointed toward the transfer authorization.
“That is my forged signature.”
“That proves someone forged your signature.”
“He's already used my credentials.”
“According to Vanessa.”
“And forty million dollars vanished.”
“According to Vanessa.”
“You don't believe her?”
“I believe evidence.”
I stepped closer.
“My wife is unconscious. Someone tried to steal my children. Forgive me if I'm finished waiting politely.”
Her expression softened only slightly.
“That's exactly why you shouldn't leave.”
Before I could respond, my phone rang.
Daniel.
His name illuminated the screen.
Everyone went silent.
Detective Ortiz held out her hand.
I shook my head.
“He called me.”
“Speaker.”
I answered.
“Daniel.”
“Mason.”
His voice sounded exactly as it always did.
Calm.
Warm.
Concerned.
“I just heard something happened to Claire.”
I looked at Vanessa through the glass wall of the interview room.
She shook her head frantically.
Daniel already knew.
“What did you hear?”
“That she collapsed.”
“From whom?”
A pause.
“Vanessa.”
Interesting.
Vanessa mouthed, No.
“When?”
“Maybe half an hour ago.”
“Where are you?”
“Driving to the hospital.”
Detective Ortiz silently gestured for me to keep him talking.
“Why?”
Daniel sounded confused.
“Because my best friend's wife is in intensive care and my godchildren were just born.”
My throat tightened.
He had been meant to become their godfather.
Claire and I had chosen him months ago.
“Daniel.”
“Yeah?”
“Did you send Vanessa to the parking garage?”
Silence.
Not long.
Maybe two seconds.
But Daniel had taught me something years earlier.
When people are surprised by the truth, they react immediately.
When they're surprised by what you know, they pause.
“Why would I do that?”
“That wasn't my question.”
Another silence.
“Mason, you sound upset.”
“My wife may have been poisoned.”
This time the surprise sounded genuine.
“What?”
Detective Ortiz's eyes narrowed.
“She was poisoned.”
“Oh my God.”
“Someone put the toxin in a drink.”
“Who brought the drink?”
I almost admired him.
That question arrived too quickly.
He was trying to move me toward Vanessa.
“You tell me.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means come to the hospital.”
“I'm ten minutes away.”
Detective Ortiz wrote something on a notepad.
KEEP HIM COMING.
“Good,” I said.
“Mason?”
“What?”
“Don't talk to anyone about company business until I arrive.”
There it was.
Not Claire.
Not the babies.
Company business.
“Why?”
“Because if someone actually poisoned Claire, we don't know what this is connected to.”
I looked at Ortiz.
“How would company business be connected?”
Daniel hesitated.
“I don't know. I'm thinking out loud.”
“No. You're not.”
“Mason—”
The call ended.
He had hung up.
Ortiz immediately contacted officers downstairs.
“Vehicle?”
I gave them the description.
Black Range Rover.
Georgia plates.
They prepared to meet him.
He never arrived.
Ten minutes passed.
Then twenty.
His phone went dark.
Traffic cameras later showed Daniel's SUV approaching the hospital.
At 2:31, it turned onto a side street two blocks away.
At 2:33, a different camera caught a man matching Daniel's build walking toward a parking lot.
That was the last confirmed image of him.
By 3:00, he was officially missing.
Or running.
I didn't care which.
I went back to Claire.
Dr. Bennett allowed me to sit beside her.
Her condition had stabilized again.
The antidotal treatment was helping, though he warned me the next twelve hours mattered.
I held her hand.
“You were right.”
She didn't move.
“It wasn't just Vanessa.”
My voice broke.
“Daniel is involved.”
Still nothing.
“I should've listened to you when you told me something was wrong with the foundation.”
I looked down.
“I was too busy.”
That was the excuse successful men used when they failed the people who mattered.
Too busy.
Too many meetings.
Too many flights.
Too many responsibilities.
Claire had never asked me for much.
She asked me to have dinner without my phone.
I checked email under the table.
She asked me to attend an ultrasound.
I arrived twenty minutes late.
She told me something was wrong with our foundation's finances.
I said we'd talk later.
Now she lay unconscious because later had almost never come.
“I promise you,” I whispered, “I'm going to fix this.”
Her fingers moved.
Barely.
But they moved.
I leaned closer.
“Claire?”
Her eyelids fluttered.
I reached for the nurse button.
Then Claire whispered one word.
“Office.”
“What?”
“Office.”
“Your office?”
She shook her head weakly.
“Mine.”
“The foundation?”
She nodded.
“What am I looking for?”
Her lips moved.
I bent closer.
“Bottom drawer.”
Then she lost consciousness again.
Dr. Bennett entered almost immediately.
“She needs rest.”
I stood.
“She's trying to help us.”
“And she nearly died.”
“I know.”
“Then help her by letting her body recover.”
He was right.
I kissed Claire's forehead and left.
Detective Ortiz listened when I told her.
“We'll search the office.”
“I'm coming.”
“No.”
“Detective.”
“This is potentially evidence.”
“It's my building.”
“That doesn't give you the right to contaminate a crime scene.”
“Her office is at the foundation, not the hospital.”
“And if she hid evidence there, whoever poisoned her may know that.”
I looked toward the nursery.
Going anywhere felt impossible.
Staying felt worse.
Ortiz studied my face.
“I'll send officers. You remain with your family.”
Then my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photograph.
Claire's office.
The image had been taken from inside.
Her desk drawers were pulled open.
Papers covered the floor.
I showed Ortiz.
A second message appeared.
YOU'RE ALREADY TOO LATE.
Ortiz grabbed her radio.
I read the words again.
Too late.
Then another photograph arrived.
This one showed Claire standing outside the Sloane Foundation three days earlier.
She was hugely pregnant.
She was getting into her car.
Someone had photographed her from across the street.
Below it was a message.
SHE SHOULD HAVE STOPPED DIGGING.
Ortiz took the phone.
“Do not respond.”
But I noticed something in the photograph.
Behind Claire, reflected in the glass door of the foundation, was the person taking the picture.
Only part of the face was visible.
But I recognized the coat.
I had bought it.
It was custom made in London.
A gift for Daniel's forty-first birthday.
I looked at Detective Ortiz.
“He was following her.”
Before she could answer, an officer rushed toward us.
“Detective.”
“What?”
“We found Reeve's vehicle.”
“Where?”
“Two blocks away.”
“Anything inside?”
The officer hesitated.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“A laptop.”
My heart accelerated.
“And?”
“A hospital access badge.”
Ortiz's face hardened.
“Whose?”
The officer looked at me.
“Dr. Adrian Bennett's.”
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
I turned toward the ICU.
Dr. Bennett was still inside with my wife.
The doctor who had discovered Claire had been poisoned.
The doctor who had been with her since she collapsed.
The man I had trusted because he appeared to be saving her life.
Detective Ortiz moved instantly.
“Get hospital security.”
I grabbed her arm.
“You think Bennett is involved?”
“I think someone had his badge.”
The officer interrupted.
“There's more.”
He showed us a photograph from the SUV.
Beside the doctor's access badge was a sealed envelope.
My name was written across it.
MASON SLOANE.
Inside was a single page.
And on that page were four typed words.
YOUR WIFE KNOWS EVERYTHING.
At the bottom was a date.
Tomorrow's date.
And underneath it:
BY TOMORROW, SHE WON'T TALK.
I looked through the ICU glass.
Dr. Bennett was standing beside Claire.
May you like
His hand reached toward her IV line.
And suddenly, I wasn't sure whether the man saving my wife was about to become the man who finished killing her.
