Chapter 16 - The Man Who Didn’t Leave
Police searched Logan.
They searched Ethan’s office.
They searched the condo he sometimes used after late meetings.
Nothing.
Then at 6:40 p.m., a nurse found a maintenance uniform folded inside a staff restroom on the second floor of the hospital.
The badge clipped to it was missing.
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“He’s here,” I said.
Detective Chen did not tell me I was imagining things.
She ordered an immediate security lockdown around obstetrics.
Renee closed my blinds and moved me to a room farther from the public elevator.
Lena stayed beside me.
“Why would he come here?” she asked.
I knew.
“The phone.”
“What?”
“He thinks the evidence is on my phone. He always thought one device held everything.”
We had already copied the files in six places.
Ethan did not know that.
At 7:12, someone tried my old room door.
Security cameras caught a man in blue scrubs, surgical mask, baseball cap.
He walked away before the guard reached him.
The footage was grainy.
I recognized the way he carried his left shoulder slightly lower than the right.
Ethan had broken his collarbone playing hockey in college.
“It’s him.”
Detective Chen radioed officers.
The hallway filled with footsteps.
Then my phone rang from Ethan’s number.
Everyone froze.
Chen motioned for me to answer on speaker.
I did.
“Claire.”
His voice was calm.
Too calm.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“You’ve made this impossible.”
“You did that yourself.”
“I can still fix it.”
“You mean erase it.”
A pause.
Then he said, “I just need the phone.”
Chen silently pointed to herself, asking me to keep him talking.
“You tried to take my baby before she was born.”
“I was trying to save our family.”
“No. You were trying to sell it.”
His breathing changed.
Then a metal door slammed somewhere nearby.
May you like
Not through the phone.
In the hallway outside my room.
