Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN IN ROOM 412
Ethan showed the texts to Ruiz.
Ruiz told him not to respond.
At the hospital, Ava was moved to a private room under security. Lena refused to leave until someone promised Margaret couldn't walk back in.
"You should go home," Ava told her.
Lena shook her head. "Your home is where this happened."
The sentence landed harder than Ava expected.
For two years she had called the estate home. Now she remembered locked medicine cabinets, canceled visitors, and Margaret answering for her.
Around noon, an elderly woman appeared at the nurses' station asking for Ethan.
Her name was Nora Bell.
She had worked for the Hale family for twenty-three years.
Margaret fired her one month after Ava's accident.
Nora entered Room 412 carrying a faded blue envelope.
"I should've come sooner," she said.
Ethan recognized her immediately. "Why didn't you?"
"Your mother made sure I understood what would happen if I did."
Nora sat near Ava.
"The night of your crash, Margaret came home at eleven thirty. Her coat was soaked. She told me she'd been at a charity board dinner. But I had served her dinner at seven, and she never left in formal clothes. She changed into jeans and a raincoat afterward."
Ava's chest tightened.
Nora continued.
"She went straight to the mudroom sink and washed her hands for a long time. There was black grease under her nails."
Ethan looked away.
"Why didn't you tell the police?"
"I tried. Your mother found out. Two days later, I was accused of stealing jewelry."
Nora handed Ava the blue envelope.
Inside was a photocopy of a handwritten note Margaret had thrown away.
CALL R. BEFORE 9. MAKE SURE THE ROAD LOOKS NATURAL.
Below it was a phone number.
Ruiz ran the number.
It belonged to Raymond Pike, a former mechanic with two fraud convictions.
Then Nora said the part that made Ethan's blood run cold.
"Raymond wasn't a stranger to your mother."
She looked directly at him.
May you like
"He worked for your father the year he died."
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