Chapter 4
“She said, ‘He came carrying flowers, but he wasn’t there to visit.’”
I stared at her.
“Flowers?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Think.”
“Danny.”
“Think.”
She stood abruptly.
“I am thinking.”
The sharpness surprised me.
Then she lowered her voice.
“My mother forgets my apartment number. Some days she thinks I’m sixteen. I’m not going to pretend her memories are evidence just because you want answers.”
The words stopped me.
She was right.
I hated that too.
Emma took a breath.
“But I can visit her tomorrow.”
“You go Thursdays.”
“I can go twice.”
“No.”
She frowned.
“No?”
“You work two jobs.”
“So?”
“So you’re exhausted.”
“I can decide when I’m exhausted.”
“You nearly fell asleep standing last week.”
“I was leaning.”
“You were unconscious vertically.”
That almost made her smile.
Almost.
Then she looked at Luke.
“Why did you have my mother’s records?”
Luke answered quietly.
“Because I was looking for answers.”
“About Danny?”
“Yes.”
“And you hired me because of her?”
The question hung between them.
Luke did not lie.
“At first, her name caught my attention.”
Emma’s expression changed.
Not anger.
Something more wounded.
“So I wasn’t just a cleaner.”
“You were qualified.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Luke glanced at me.
I had heard those exact words from myself minutes earlier.
Emma noticed.
A tired laugh escaped her.
“Fantastic. You two are more alike than either of you wants to admit.”
She picked up the towels.
“Emma.”
Luke’s voice softened.
She stopped.
“I should have told you.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
She looked at him for a long moment.
Then nodded once.
Not forgiveness.
Not yet.
But not rejection either.
At the doorway, she turned toward me.
“I’ll see my mother tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
“For the record, I didn’t know any of this when you were hired.”
“I believe you.”
I wasn’t sure why her believing me mattered.
But it did.
The following afternoon, Emma returned to the estate three hours before her shift.
I was in the library.
She entered carrying an old cardboard box.
Luke followed behind her.
Neither looked pleased.
“What happened?”
Emma set the box on the table.
“My mother remembered the flowers.”
I moved closer.
“What kind?”
“White lilies.”
Nothing.
No recognition.
Then Emma opened the box.
Inside were photographs, old employee newsletters, greeting cards, and a hospital identification badge with Helen Carter’s smiling face.
“She kept this stuff in storage,” Emma said. “The facility had a box of personal belongings they never gave me because it was mislabeled.”
Luke picked up a photograph.
Emma continued.
“She remembered a man with lilies going to your room.”
“Did she know his name?”
“No.”
Disappointment dropped through me.
“But,” Emma said, “she remembered something else.”
She reached into the box.
This time she removed a small envelope.
On the front, in faded handwriting, were four words.
For Daniel Moretti’s family.
My hands went cold.
Emma gave it to me.
“It was sealed when I found it.”
“Was?”
“I opened it.”
“Why?”
“It was with my mother’s things.”
Fair enough.
Inside was a single sheet of hospital stationery.
Helen Carter had written only five lines.
I read them slowly.
A man came to Room 614 at 6:42 p.m. He said he was family. He was not on the approved list. Dr. Reeves allowed him upstairs personally. I reported it because the man left before Daniel Moretti woke. Later, Dr. Reeves asked me to forget I had seen him.
Beneath those lines was one final sentence.
I never forgot his face.
At the bottom, Helen had drawn something.
Not a face.
A symbol.
A small circle divided by three intersecting lines.
I stared at it.
Luke went completely still.
Emma noticed.
“What?” she asked.
I looked at him.
“Luke?”
He did not answer.
“Tell me.”
His eyes remained fixed on the symbol.
When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet.
“I’ve seen that mark before.”
“Where?”
He looked at me.
“On something your father kept locked in his desk.”
My father had been dead for eleven years.
And suddenly, for the first time since the bullet changed my life, the trail did not seem to lead toward an enemy.
May you like
It seemed to lead backward.
Toward my own family.
