Chapter 12 - Someone Inside
Every staff member became a suspect.
Including me.
It is a strange thing to watch people you have worked beside for years become entries on an investigator's list.
Access records.
Financial histories.
Phone logs.
Carla Reeves remained missing.
Richard's video provided only fragments.
He had discovered irregular payments involving a private legal firm and someone at Pine Valley Children's Hospital.
He believed the plan was not necessarily to kill Samuel.
It might have been to make his condition unstable enough to delay discharge and trigger a legal guardianship dispute.
That distinction did not make Kayla feel better.
“Someone was using my baby.”
Wade corrected her.
“Trying to.”
The investigation continued.
Then Samuel got stronger.
Three pounds became three pounds six ounces.
Then three twelve.
He began tolerating feeds better.
His breathing stabilized.
Kayla learned kangaroo care.
The first time she held Samuel against her chest, Wade stood several feet away.
I saw him wipe his eyes.
Kayla noticed too.
“You're allowed to cry.”
“I got dust in my eye.”
“In a NICU?”
“Hospital dust.”
She smiled.
Then she looked at the empty chair beside her.
“Sit.”
Wade sat.
She shifted Samuel carefully.
“Want to hold him?”
“I hold him all the time.”
“Not as a volunteer.”
Wade looked at her.
“As his grandfather.”
The word almost broke him.
He held Samuel.
Kayla rested her head against Wade's shoulder.
Three generations sat beneath the soft NICU lights.
A family that should have met twenty-six years earlier.
That moment lasted seven minutes.
Then Detective Brooks entered.
“We found Carla.”
Alive.
She had been hiding at a motel.
Under questioning, she admitted accepting money.
But not to hurt Samuel.
She had been paid to copy records.
“Who paid her?” Wade asked.
Brooks looked at Kayla.
“Travis Cole.”
Kayla closed her eyes.
Travis had lied again.
He had paid Carla to obtain Samuel's medical records before filing for custody.
It was unethical.
Possibly criminal.
But it did not explain the blackout.
Or the medication room.
Or the threat.
Then Carla provided one more detail.
“She saw someone near the electrical panel that night.”
“Richard?”
“No.”
Brooks slid a photograph across the table.
I recognized the face.
Everyone did.
Dr. Malcolm Hayes.
One of Pine Valley's senior administrators.
He had worked at the hospital for thirty-two years.
Wade stared at him.
Then suddenly stood.
“What?”
I asked.
His face had drained of color.
“I know him.”
“How?”
Wade pointed at the photograph.
“He was at the hospital when Elizabeth died.”
The room went silent.
“What was he then?” Brooks asked.
Wade whispered:
“A resident.”
We dug into archived records.
Twenty-seven years earlier, Malcolm Hayes had been involved in Sarah Turner's care.
He had also signed one of the documents stating Sarah had died.
Except Sarah had not died.
The signature connected everything.
Brooks obtained a warrant.
Hayes was brought in for questioning.
For six hours, he denied wrongdoing.
Then investigators showed him Richard's files.
Hayes asked for an attorney.
Before leaving the room, he said one sentence.
“You don't understand what Charles Collins made us do.”
Wade heard about it.
His reaction was immediate.
“He lied to me.”
“Yes,” Brooks said.
“He told me Sarah was dead.”
“Yes.”
Wade stared through the glass.
Twenty-seven years collapsed into one man.
One signature.
One lie.
“Can I talk to him?”
“No.”
Wade nodded.
For once, he did not argue.
Instead, he returned to Samuel.
He sat in the same chair where this story had begun.
Samuel opened his eyes.
Wade whispered:
“I spent half my life looking backward, little bear.”
He touched the baby's tiny hand.
“I think maybe you're trying to teach me something.”
Behind him, Kayla stood quietly.
“What?”
Wade looked at her.
“That I still have a life in front of me.”
Kayla smiled.
Then Samuel's monitor beeped.
Not an emergency.
A nurse checked it.
Everything was fine.
For once, a beep was simply a beep.
But the next morning brought another shock.
Malcolm Hayes had agreed to cooperate.
And according to him, Sarah Turner had tried to find Wade seventeen years earlier.
She had even come to Pine Valley.
May you like
Someone intercepted her before she reached him.
Someone Wade had trusted for most of his adult life.
