PART 2 — THE ROOM BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR
“Because Tommy is still upstairs.”
For half a second, nobody moved.
Then my chair hit the floor behind me.
“What do you mean, still upstairs?”
Ava pointed toward the second floor.
Her face had gone pale.
“I tried to get him out before the wedding.”
Diane stood so quickly she knocked a glass from the side table.
It shattered.
“Tommy is with my mother.”
“No, he isn’t.”
My daughter’s voice was barely audible.
“He’s in the blue room.”
Diane’s mother stared at her.
“What are you talking about? I thought he was with Fen.”
Fen shook her head.
“I haven’t seen him since before the ceremony.”
Every eye in the room turned toward Wade.
He stopped groaning.
That was what I remember most.
Not the shouting that followed.
Not Patricia crying.
Not Diane demanding answers.
Wade simply stopped pretending to be in pain.
His eyes locked on Ava.
And for the first time since I entered the house, I saw exactly what my daughter had been seeing for months.
Fear.
Not hers.
His.
I moved toward the stairs.
Wade’s father stepped in front of me.
“Wait.”
I stopped.
“Move.”
“You need to understand something first.”
“I need to find an eight-year-old boy.”
“Please.”
There was something in his voice that made me look at him.
His name was Howard Mercer.
I had met him only twice before.
He was the kind of man who spoke softly enough that everyone else lowered their voices to hear him.
But now sweat had gathered along his forehead.
“What did you mean when you said ‘not again’?”
Patricia whispered:
“Howard.”
He ignored her.
His eyes stayed on mine.
“When Wade was sixteen, there was an incident.”
Wade made a furious sound through his wired jaw.
His father flinched.
That was all I needed.
“Move.”
Howard stepped aside.
I took the stairs two at a time.
Ava followed.
Diane came behind us.
The hallway upstairs still looked like a wedding had happened.
Garment bags hung from doorframes.
A curling iron lay unplugged beside a mirror.
White rose petals had been crushed into the carpet.
At the far end was a blue door.
I reached for the knob.
Locked.
“Tommy?”
Nothing.
I knocked harder.
“Tommy, it’s Dad.”
Still nothing.
Diane caught up.
“He’s not in there.”
Ava looked at her mother.
“Yes, he is.”
“How would you know?”
“Because Wade put him there.”
Diane’s face hardened.
“You saw him?”
Ava hesitated.
“No.”
That single word gave Diane something to grab onto.
“Then you don’t know.”
“I heard him.”
“When?”
“During the reception.”
“What did he say?”
Ava’s eyes filled.
“He asked me not to leave him.”
That ended the argument.
I tried the door again.
Solid.
Then I noticed the lock.
It wasn’t a normal bedroom lock.
The inside knob had been removed.
A brass deadbolt had been installed above it.
Key-operated.
From the hallway.
I looked at Diane.
“Did you put this here?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
She didn’t answer.
Ava did.
“Wade.”
I stepped back.
“Tommy!”
A faint sound came from inside.
Three taps.
Then silence.
My blood went cold.
I hit the door with my shoulder.
Nothing.
Again.
The frame cracked.
Diane screamed my name.
I hit it a third time.
Wood split around the deadbolt.
The door flew inward.
The room was dark.
Curtains closed.
Lamp unplugged.
Mattress on the floor.
No sheets.
And in the corner, behind a plastic storage bin, sat my eight-year-old son.
His knees were pulled to his chest.
He was wearing the little navy suit I had seen in the wedding photographs Diane sent me the day before.
Except the jacket was gone.
His white shirt had dirt across the front.
One sleeve was torn.
And around his left ankle was a plastic zip tie.
For a second, my mind refused to understand what I was seeing.
“Tommy.”
He lifted his head.
“Dad?”
That one word nearly broke me.
I crossed the room.
He tried to stand and stumbled.
I caught him before he hit the floor.
His arms went around my neck.
Too light.
He felt too light.
“I knew Ava would get you.”
I held him tighter.
Behind me, Diane made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob.
“Tommy?”
He buried his face against my shoulder.
His entire body stiffened.
Not when I entered.
Not when Ava entered.
When his mother did.
That mattered.
Diane took one step closer.
“Oh my God.”
Tommy whispered:
“Don’t.”
She stopped.
“Baby, it’s Mom.”
“Don’t let Wade come.”
“He won’t.”
Tommy looked at me.
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
I pulled my phone out.
911.
I told them we had located a child who appeared to have been unlawfully confined and injured.
I requested police and an ambulance.
Then I did something I would later be grateful for.
I didn’t touch anything else.
I photographed the broken door only after telling dispatch I had forced entry.
I photographed the exterior deadbolt.
The mattress.
The unplugged lamp.
The zip tie.
The empty water bottle near the wall.
A plate with half a sandwich dried hard at the edges.
Not because my children needed me to become an investigator.
Because somebody had already spent six months teaching them adults could look away from evidence.
I wasn’t going to.
Ava knelt beside Tommy.
“I’m sorry.”
He shook his head.
“You came back.”
“I should’ve gotten you sooner.”
“You came back.”
She started crying then.
Really crying.
The twelve-year-old who had sat downstairs while adults called her violent finally folded.
Tommy reached for her.
I held both of them.
And over their heads, I looked at Diane.
She had one hand over her mouth.
“What happened?”
I asked.
She shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“You live here.”
“I work.”
“So do millions of parents.”
“He said Tommy was having behavior problems.”
“What behavior?”
“Lying. Stealing food. Talking back.”
Tommy pulled away from me.
“I wasn’t stealing.”
Diane froze.
He looked directly at her.
“He wouldn’t let me eat dinner.”
“Tommy—”
“If I cried, he made it longer.”
My jaw tightened.
“Made what longer?”
“The room.”
Ava whispered:
“Tell Dad about the timer.”
Diane stared at her.
“What timer?”
Tommy pointed toward the closet.
I opened it.
There was no clothing inside.
Just a folding chair.
A digital kitchen timer.
A notebook.
And a small camera mounted on a shelf.
I stared at it.
Diane whispered:
“No.”
I didn’t touch the camera.
Instead I photographed it.
Then the notebook.
The front had two words written in black marker.
TOMMY — CORRECTIONS.
My hands started shaking.
Ava grabbed my sleeve.
“Dad.”
“What?”
“There are more.”
“More what?”
“Notebooks.”
“Where?”
“Wade keeps them in the garage.”
Diane snapped:
“How do you know?”
Ava turned on her.
“Because I’ve been trying to prove this while you’ve been planning a wedding.”
Silence.
That sentence hit exactly where it needed to.
Diane lowered her eyes.
Sirens sounded in the distance.
Downstairs, voices rose.
Then footsteps.
Howard appeared at the doorway.
He saw Tommy.
Then the deadbolt.
Then the zip tie.
His face collapsed.
“Oh, God.”
I stood.
“What happened when Wade was sixteen?”
He stared at the floor.
“Not now.”
I stepped between him and my children.
“Now.”
Patricia appeared behind him.
“Howard, don’t.”
Ava looked at them.
“You knew.”
Patricia shook her head.
“No, sweetheart.”
“You knew something.”
Howard closed his eyes.
Then:
“Wade had a younger cousin.”
Patricia started crying.
“His name was Caleb.”
“How old?”
“Nine.”
“What happened?”
“Caleb stayed with us one summer.”
Howard looked toward the camera in Tommy’s closet.
His face drained further.
“Wade used to lock him in our shed.”
Diane grabbed the doorframe.
“What?”
“We didn’t know at first.”
“For how long?”
“Several weeks.”
“What did Wade do to him?”
Howard swallowed.
“Punishments.”
The word made me sick.
“What kind?”
“He would take his food.”
“Lock him in the dark.”
“Make him sit still for hours.”
“Why?”
“Wade said Caleb needed discipline.”
Exactly.
The same word.
Twenty years apart.
Same excuse.
“What happened to Caleb?”
Patricia whispered:
“He ran away.”
Howard looked at her.
“No.”
She stared at him.
He said it again.
“No, Patricia.”
Something passed between them.
A secret they had apparently spent decades using different words for.
I stepped closer.
“What happened to Caleb?”
Howard’s eyes filled.
“He disappeared.”
My chest tightened.
“Was he found?”
“Three days later.”
“Where?”
Howard’s voice broke.
“Near the river.”
Patricia started sobbing.
Diane whispered:
“Was he alive?”
Nobody answered.
They didn’t have to.
Ava stood slowly.
Her face was white.
“That’s why you said ‘not again.’”
Howard nodded.
I felt rage move through me so hard I had to consciously keep my hands open.
“You knew your son had done this before.”
“We got him help.”
“You knew.”
“He was sixteen.”
“You knew.”
“The therapist said—”
“You knew.”
Howard stopped.
Police entered the house downstairs.
I could hear officers ordering people to remain where they were.
Howard whispered:
“Yes.”
“And when Ava showed those photographs?”
“I knew.”
“But you said nothing.”
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
He looked at me.
“The truth.”
I almost laughed.
“Your grandson was locked in a room, and you were afraid of the truth?”
“He isn’t my grandson.”
“No.”
I pointed toward Tommy.
“He’s an eight-year-old child.”
Howard lowered his head.
That was when Tommy said:
“Dad?”
I turned immediately.
“What?”
“There’s another camera.”
Every adult froze.
“Where?”
He pointed under the mattress.
An officer arrived before I moved it.
I told her what Tommy had said.
She called for a crime-scene technician.
They lifted the mattress.
Taped beneath the wooden platform was a second device.
Smaller.
Not Wade’s.
Ava whispered:
“That’s mine.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“I put it there.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
My twelve-year-old daughter looked terrified.
“I bought it with my birthday money.”
Diane whispered:
“You were recording us?”
“No.”
Ava’s eyes stayed on me.
“I was recording him.”
The officer crouched beside her.
“Ava, does that camera contain footage from this room?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“It uploads when it gets Wi-Fi.”
“Where does it upload?”
“My private account.”
The officer asked Ava not to open anything until they could preserve it properly.
Ava nodded.
Then she looked at me.
“That’s why I hit him.”
I felt the room narrow.
“Tell me.”
She swallowed.
“During the wedding, Tommy disappeared.”
“I asked Mom where he was.”
“She said Wade told her Tommy had gotten sick.”
“I knew that was a lie.”
“So I went upstairs.”
“The door was locked.”
“I heard Tommy crying.”
“Then Wade came up.”
Her hands began shaking again.
“What happened?”
“He told me to go downstairs.”
“I said I was getting Tommy.”
“He grabbed me.”
“Where?”
“My arm.”
She rolled up her sleeve.
Finger-shaped bruises.
Fresh.
Diane made a broken sound.
Ava continued.
“I yelled.”
“He covered my mouth.”
My vision went hot.
The police officer glanced at me.
I stayed still.
For Ava.
“What did you do?”
“I bit him.”
“Then?”
“He let go.”
“I ran downstairs.”
“Why didn’t you call police?”
“I tried.”
She started crying.
“He took my phone.”
I looked at the phone she had shown us.
“How did you get it back?”
“Later.”
“Keep going.”
“He told everyone I was having a tantrum because Mom was getting remarried.”
Diane closed her eyes.
Of course.
A ready-made explanation.
A jealous daughter.
A troubled child.
Adults love stories that allow them to ignore inconvenient evidence.
Ava continued.
“Then I saw him put something in Mom’s purse.”
“What?”
“A key.”
“The blue-room key?”
She nodded.
“I took it.”
“Then why was the door locked when we got upstairs?”
Ava’s face changed.
“Because it wasn’t the only key.”
I looked at Howard.
He went pale.
Ava continued.
“I went upstairs again.”
“Wade followed me.”
“I unlocked the door.”
“Tommy was on the floor.”
“He couldn’t stand right.”
“He kept saying he was thirsty.”
“I tried to pull him out.”
“And Wade?”
“He grabbed Tommy.”
Her voice cracked.
“By the neck of his shirt.”
Tommy buried his face against me.
Ava started crying harder.
“I told him to stop.”
“He said I needed to learn respect too.”
“Then he shoved me into the wall.”
I looked at the officer.
She was writing everything.
“What happened next?”
Ava whispered:
“I saw the fireplace poker.”
Diane gasped.
My stomach dropped.
“You hit Wade with a fireplace poker?”
“No.”
“I thought about it.”
That honesty hurt.
“But I didn’t.”
“What did you do?”
“I punched him.”
“With your hand?”
“Yes.”
“One time?”
“No.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked ashamed.
“He fell.”
“I thought he would get up.”
“Then he did.”
My chest tightened.
“He got up?”
“Yes.”
“The wedding guests were coming upstairs because they heard us.”
“He looked at me and whispered that if I told anyone what happened, he’d say I attacked him because I hated the wedding.”
“And everyone would believe him.”
She looked toward her mother.
“They did.”
Diane started crying.
Ava continued.
“Then he went downstairs.”
“He collapsed near the porch.”
“That’s where the blood came from.”
“Yes.”
“But Tommy was still locked inside.”
I frowned.
“How?”
Ava looked at Howard.
“He took the key from me before he went downstairs.”
Then she said:
“But I heard someone come back up afterward.”
Howard’s face changed.
“Who?”
Ava shook her head.
“I was hiding in the bathroom.”
“Why?”
“Because Wade told his dad I needed to be taught a lesson.”
Every eye turned toward Howard.
He staggered backward.
“No.”
Ava looked directly at him.
“I heard him say it.”
Howard shook his head.
“I never came upstairs.”
“Then who did?”
Nobody answered.
Ava wiped her face.
“I heard the blue-room door open.”
“Then close.”
“Then the deadbolt.”
My stomach tightened.
Someone had deliberately relocked Tommy after Wade was already downstairs.
Which meant Wade had help.
The officer heard it too.
“Who else had access to that key?”
Diane whispered:
“Me.”
Silence.
I looked at her.
Her face drained.
“You went upstairs.”
“No.”
“You had a key.”
“I lost mine weeks ago.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“Wade.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
Howard said:
“Patricia had one.”
His wife stared at him.
“What?”
“You told me Wade gave you a spare.”
Patricia began shaking.
“That was for emergencies.”
I stepped toward her.
“Did you go upstairs after Wade was injured?”
“No.”
“Patricia.”
Howard’s voice had changed.
“Tell them.”
She looked at her son.
Downstairs.
Then at Tommy.
Then Ava.
“I was protecting my family.”
My blood ran cold.
“From what?”
She started crying.
“From another scandal.”
Howard stared at her.
“You relocked the door.”
“I thought Wade would explain everything after the guests left.”
Diane screamed:
“You locked my son in there?”
“I didn’t touch him!”
“You saw him?”
Patricia said nothing.
Diane moved toward her.
An officer stepped between them.
“You saw my eight-year-old in that room and locked the door?”
Patricia sobbed.
“I panicked.”
Ava whispered:
“You all panic when it’s us.”
Nobody spoke.
That twelve-year-old sentence held more truth than anything the adults had said.
Paramedics arrived.
Tommy was taken downstairs on a stretcher.
Ava refused treatment until I promised I would stay with her.
Police separated everyone for interviews.
Wade was transferred back to the hospital under police supervision.
Patricia was detained for questioning.
Howard sat alone on the porch.
Diane stood in the kitchen staring at nothing.
And just before paramedics took Tommy outside, he grabbed my wrist.
“Dad.”
“I’m here.”
“Don’t let them throw away my shoe.”
I frowned.
“What shoe?”
“The black one.”
“Why?”
He whispered:
“I hid something inside it.”
The officer beside us heard.
She asked:
“What did you hide, Tommy?”
His eyes moved toward Diane.
Then toward the stairs.
“A little card.”
“What kind of card?”
“The one Wade kept putting in the camera.”
A memory card.
My heart started pounding.
“Where is the shoe?”
“Under the bed.”
The officer immediately radioed upstairs.
Minutes later, an evidence technician brought down a child’s black dress shoe in a clear bag.
The inner sole had been partially lifted.
Beneath it was a microSD card wrapped in tissue.
Ava stared.
“I didn’t know about that.”
Tommy whispered:
“I took it when he forgot to lock the closet.”
The technician bagged it separately.
Then Tommy said something that changed the investigation again.
“There are videos of other kids.”
Howard, sitting within earshot on the porch, slowly raised his head.
I looked at Tommy.
“What other kids?”
“I don’t know.”
“From school?”
He shook his head.
“Old videos.”
“How old?”
“Some look like when Grandpa Howard was young.”
Howard stood.
“No.”
The officer immediately told him to sit.
His face had gone gray.
“What is on that card, Howard?”
“I don’t know.”
Tommy looked at him.
“Yes, you do.”
Howard stared at my son.
Tommy whispered:
“Wade showed me one.”
“What did he show you?”
“A boy in a shed.”
Patricia screamed from the hallway.
“No!”
Every officer in the room turned.
Howard closed his eyes.
Caleb.
The cousin who had died twenty years earlier.
The childhood incident everyone claimed had been handled.
It had been recorded.
And Wade had kept it.
The card left with detectives.
I followed the ambulance to the hospital with Ava beside me.
For the first time since I arrived, she slept.
Her head rested against the window.
Her bruised hand lay open in her lap.
Not clenched anymore.
At the hospital, doctors found dehydration, bruising, and injuries consistent with repeated physical restraint on Tommy.
Nothing immediately life-threatening.
Those were the best words I heard all night.
Ava had a fractured finger.
She kept apologizing for hitting Wade.
I finally took her face gently between my hands.
“Listen to me.”
She looked up.
“You do not have to apologize to me for surviving something frightening.”
“But I hurt him.”
“Yes.”
“And we’re going to tell the truth about every part of what happened.”
“Even the parts that don’t make you look perfect.”
Her eyes filled.
“I wasn’t perfect.”
“I know.”
“You were twelve.”
“That doesn’t mean every choice was automatically right.”
“But it does mean the adults had a responsibility to protect you before you ever reached the point where you believed your fists were the only thing anyone would listen to.”
She cried.
I held her.
Then my phone rang.
Detective Marisol Vega.
She asked me to step into the hallway.
I did.
“Mr. Bennett, we reviewed the first files from the memory card.”
My stomach tightened.
“And?”
“Ava was telling the truth.”
I closed my eyes.
“All of it?”
“About Tommy.”
“Yes.”
“About the confinement.”
“Yes.”
“About Wade.”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Then her voice changed.
“But the card contains something else.”
“What?”
“Footage from approximately twenty-one years ago.”
“Caleb.”
“Yes.”
My stomach turned.
“Did Wade record it?”
“We’re still determining that.”
“What does it show?”
Another pause.
“Wade was not alone.”
I thought about Howard.
Patricia.
The words not again.
“Who was with him?”
“We identified one adult.”
My throat tightened.
“Who?”
She didn’t answer immediately.
“Detective.”
“The footage shows someone opening the shed door while Caleb is inside.”
“Who?”
“Howard Mercer.”
I closed my eyes.
Wade’s father.
The man who had stood in Diane’s living room looking horrified by the photographs.
The man who claimed he discovered Wade’s behavior only after it had been happening for weeks.
“What did Howard do?”
“He spoke to Wade.”
“What did he say?”
“We’ll need formal forensic enhancement before quoting the recording.”
“Tell me what you can.”
Detective Vega exhaled.
“He appears to tell Wade that Caleb will learn faster if everyone stops rescuing him.”
I leaned against the wall.
Howard hadn’t simply known.
He had taught him.
The cycle had not started with Wade.
It had been handed to him.
Then Vega said:
“There’s more.”
Of course there was.
“What?”
“The final video on the card was recorded yesterday.”
“The wedding?”
“Yes.”
“What does it show?”
I stopped breathing.
“The camera in Tommy’s room.”
“Who enters?”
“Patricia.”
“We know she relocked him.”
“She isn’t alone.”
My stomach dropped.
“Who is with her?”
The detective went silent.
Then:
“Diane.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Diane said she never went upstairs.”
“I know.”
“What does the video show?”
“Your ex-wife enters the room approximately eleven minutes after Wade was injured.”
I looked through the hospital-room window.
Ava was asleep beside Tommy.
Brother and sister.
Two children who had told the adults.
Again and again.
“What does Diane do?”
Detective Vega’s voice softened.
“She kneels beside Tommy.”
“And?”
“She tells him he has to stay quiet until the wedding guests leave.”
I couldn’t speak.
“She knew.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“What else happens?”
“Tommy asks for you.”
My throat closed.
“And Diane says something.”
“What?”
Vega hesitated.
“Mr. Bennett, I think you should hear it yourself when you come in.”
“No.”
My voice cracked.
“I have spent eight months away from my children.”
“I am done being protected from things involving them.”
“Tell me.”
Silence.
Then Detective Vega said:
“Diane tells Tommy, ‘Your father cannot find out what has been happening here, because he’ll take both of you away from me.’”
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
Not ignorance.
Fear.
Not fear for Tommy.
Fear of losing him.
And she had chosen keeping her children over protecting them.
The same way Patricia had chosen protecting her son.
The same way Howard had chosen protecting his family’s reputation.
Adults calling their own fear love.
I opened my eyes.
“Detective.”
“Yes?”
“Does Ava know?”
“Not yet.”
“Let me tell her.”
“We can arrange that.”
Then she said:
“There is one more reason I called.”
My stomach tightened.
“What now?”
“Howard Mercer left the house before officers could formally detain him.”
“What?”
“He was initially being treated as a witness.”
“Where is he?”
“We don’t know.”
I looked through the glass at my children.
“Why would he run?”
“We found another file on the card.”
“What file?”
“Not video.”
“A photograph.”
My heart started pounding.
“Of what?”
“Ava.”
I stared through the glass at my sleeping daughter.
“What kind of photograph?”
“Taken from a distance.”
“Outside her school.”
My blood went cold.
“When?”
“Six months ago.”
Six months.
The same time Ava said Wade began hurting Tommy.
“Who took it?”
“We don’t know.”
Then Vega said:
“There’s writing embedded in the image metadata.”
“What does it say?”
She paused.
“IF SHE TALKS, SEND HER TO HER FATHER.”
I didn’t understand.
“What does that mean?”
“We don’t know.”
But I did know one thing.
Howard had spent the evening terrified.
Not merely because his son’s past had returned.
Because something on that card connected Ava to a plan none of us understood yet.
And suddenly the eight months I had spent stationed overseas did not feel like an unfortunate absence anymore.
They felt useful to someone.
“Detective.”
“Yes?”
“Find out who knew my deployment schedule.”
“We’re already checking.”
“Howard knew.”
“Possibly.”
“Wade knew.”
“Yes.”
“Diane knew.”
Silence.
“Yes.”
I stared at my daughter.
Then remembered something from the first photograph Ava showed me.
The metal hasp on Tommy’s bedroom door.
I had been so focused on the lock that I missed what was reflected in the mirror beside it.
A man standing in the hallway.
Not Wade.
Older.
Gray-haired.
I opened Ava’s phone from the hospital table.
Found the photograph.
Zoomed.
My chest tightened.
Howard.
He had been inside the house while Tommy was locked away.
Not twenty years ago.
Three weeks ago.
I called Vega back.
“I found something.”
I sent the photograph.
Thirty seconds later, she called.
Her voice was different.
“Mr. Bennett.”
“What?”
“We enhanced the reflection.”
“It’s Howard.”
“Yes.”
“But look at his hand.”
I zoomed farther.
Howard was holding an envelope.
Military insignia in the corner.
My name printed across the front.
Official mail.
“What is that?”
I whispered.
“We don’t know.”
I did.
Because I remembered receiving an email six months earlier.
A request asking whether I wanted to extend my overseas assignment.
I had declined.
Two days later, another notice arrived saying my return had been postponed for operational reasons.
At the time, I accepted it.
Orders were orders.
But now Howard was standing in my ex-wife’s hallway holding correspondence addressed to me.
I felt something inside me go very still.
“Detective, someone interfered with my mail.”
“Yes.”
“And maybe my deployment paperwork.”
“We need to verify that.”
“Why?”
“That’s what we need to determine.”
I looked at Ava.
Then Tommy.
And suddenly remembered what Ava said downstairs.
We’re children, and every adult in this room chose him over us.
Maybe the adults hadn’t merely ignored her.
Maybe somebody had worked very hard to make sure the one parent who might listen stayed thousands of miles away.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
One text.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED IN GERMANY.
Then another.
HOWARD ISN’T RUNNING FROM THE POLICE.
HE’S COMING TO THE HOSPITAL.
I looked toward the elevator at the end of the corridor.
The doors opened.
A man stepped out wearing a dark coat.
Gray hair.
Head lowered.
Howard Mercer.
And in his right hand was the same envelope from Ava’s photograph.
He looked directly at me.
Then he said:
“You need to know why they kept you away before Diane tells the police the version that saves her.”
END OF PART 2
