Chapter 4 - Someone Had Picked MeI wanted to leave.
That was my first sane thought in hours.
Walk out of the hospital.
Take the train home.
Pack a bag.
Disappear.
I had spent most of my life learning how to leave before trouble learned my name.
But trouble already knew my phone number.
Damian stood near Isabelle's hospital bed, speaking quietly with Marcus.
I listened.
The security manager's name was Henry Cole.
I knew him.
Not well.
He had worked at the Wexley for three years.
He was strict about employee badges and obsessed with keeping delivery doors locked.
He had never called me.
Not once.
“Could someone spoof my number?” I asked.
Marcus nodded.
“Easily.”
“Then why use mine?”
Damian answered.
“Because whoever did this expected you to find Isabelle.”
“How could they know I'd take the alley?”
He looked at me.
“They knew your shift.”
My stomach tightened.
“They knew I use that exit.”
“Yes.”
“They knew I walk home.”
“Yes.”
I felt exposed.
Not watched now.
Watched before.
For days.
Maybe weeks.
“Why me?”
No one answered.
I laughed once.
It sounded wrong.
“I clean hotel rooms. I don't know you. I don't know your family. I don't know anything about your business.”
Damian's gaze sharpened.
“Maybe that's exactly why.”
“What does that mean?”
“You are outside my organization. Outside law enforcement. Outside my rivals.”
“So?”
“So if someone wanted Isabelle to disappear but not die, they might leave her where an uninvolved person would find her.”
I looked at the little girl.
“Not die? She had a fever over 104.”
“They may not have expected the weather.”
“That's supposed to make me feel better?”
“No.”
At least he didn't insult me.
A pediatric nurse entered.
Isabelle was sleeping.
Her fever had started to fall.
The nurse adjusted the IV and left.
I looked toward the window.
Dawn was beginning to lighten the sky over Chicago.
Yesterday, my biggest problem had been rent.
Now a murdered security manager had supposedly called me minutes before I found the daughter of a man half the city feared.
Damian spoke.
“You cannot go home.”
I turned.
“You don't get to decide that.”
“Yes, I do.”
My temper flared.
“I saved your daughter. That doesn't make me your employee.”
“No. It makes you a target.”
“Then give me police protection.”
Marcus looked away.
That told me enough.
“You don't trust the police.”
Damian didn't answer.
“Of course you don't.”
“You saw what happened to the ambulance.”
I stared at him.
“What do you mean?”
“I had Marcus check.”
Damian's voice stayed quiet.
“Your call was diverted.”
I felt the floor shift beneath me.
“Diverted how?”
“The dispatch system received Mrs. Kaplan's call, but someone marked the address as a duplicate non-emergency.”
“You can do that?”
“I can't.”
“But someone can.”
“Yes.”
Meaning this was bigger than one hotel.
Someone had access.
Or money.
Or both.
“Where am I supposed to go?”
“My house.”
I laughed.
“No.”
“It is secure.”
“Your daughter disappeared from it.”
His face went hard.
“Not anymore.”
“That isn't reassuring.”
For the first time, Marcus almost smiled.
Damian noticed.
Marcus immediately stopped.
“I have another property,” Damian said. “Lake Forest. Small staff. Private.”
“I don't want your money.”
“I didn't offer you money.”
“Good.”
“I offered survival.”
I hated that sentence because it was effective.
Two hours later, I agreed.
Only because Isabelle cried when I tried to leave.
That was the truth I refused to say aloud.
Damian's Lake Forest house was less a house than a stone fortress disguised as one.
Security gates.
Cameras.
Tall trees.
Private road.
Inside, everything looked expensive enough to make me afraid to touch it.
I expected servants everywhere.
Instead, the house was quiet.
Damian had dismissed most of the staff.
Dr. Feld came with us.
So did Marcus.
Isabelle slept upstairs.
Damian gave me a guest room.
I had never slept in a bed that large.
I didn't sleep.
At noon, Marcus knocked.
“We found something.”
He led me downstairs to a study lined with dark shelves.
Damian stood behind a desk.
On the screen in front of him was an employee file.
Mine.
Photograph.
Address.
Emergency contact.
Work schedule.
Everything.
“Where did you get that?”
“The Wexley personnel server.”
“So?”
Damian clicked.
A second document appeared.
My childhood foster record.
My breath stopped.
There are few things more violating than seeing your worst years reduced to scanned pages.
PLACEMENT ONE.
PLACEMENT TWO.
BEHAVIORAL ADJUSTMENT.
FAILED ADOPTION.
I stepped toward the monitor.
“Close it.”
“Clara—”
“Close it.”
Damian did.
Immediately.
That surprised me.
Marcus placed a printed page on the desk.
“We found a record of someone accessing your foster file three weeks ago.”
“Who?”
“The account belonged to a retired social worker.”
“I don't understand.”
“She died two years ago.”
Silence.
I looked at Damian.
“Why would anyone care about my foster record?”
Marcus slid another sheet toward me.
A list of homes.
Addresses.
Names.
My eyes moved down the page.
Then stopped.
Placement Four.
I had been eleven.
The family name listed there was Brennan.
I remembered them.
Cold house.
Locked pantry.
A foster brother who used to steal cash.
A foster mother who returned me after four months because I was “too withdrawn.”
Beside the Brennan name, someone had highlighted one line.
VISITOR AUTHORIZED FOR MINOR: EVELYN VALE.
I stared at it.
Vale.
The same name.
I slowly looked at Damian.
“Who is Evelyn Vale?”
He had gone completely still.
“My mother.”
The room seemed to disappear around me.
“Your mother knew me?”
Damian's eyes were fixed on the page.
“My mother died fifteen years ago.”
I swallowed.
I had no memory of her.
Or maybe I did.
A woman who once brought books.
A woman with kind hands.
A woman who told me I wasn't difficult.
I had forgotten her name.
Damian looked at me differently now.
Not like a witness.
Not like the woman who had found his daughter.
Like a question.
Then Marcus's phone vibrated.
He answered.
Listened.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He lowered the phone.
“We found Victor.”
Damian's jaw tightened.
“Where?”
Marcus looked at me.
“In Clara's apartment.”
My blood froze.
“Why?”
Marcus hesitated.
“He wasn't alone.”
“Who was with him?”
Marcus put the phone on speaker.
A security officer's voice answered.
“A woman.”
Damian asked, “Name?”
The answer came through static.
“Elise Warren.”
Isabelle's nanny.
And according to the officer—
May you like
They had been searching my apartment.
For something they believed my dead foster mother had left me.
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