Chapter 3 - What the Doctor Found
The chill that raced down my spine was unlike anything I had ever experienced. I whirled around toward the glass partition of Trauma Room 3, looking out into the bustling hospital hallway. Nurses, medical technicians, and visitors shuffled past, but no one stood out. Whoever had taken that photo was either blended into the crowd or watching through a security camera feed.
"Mr. Vance? Are you alright?" Dr. Aris asked, noticing my sudden rigidity.
"I..." I swallowed hard, shoving the phone back into my pocket. Every instinct urged me to scream for security, but the text message explicitly named Tommy. If these people were insane enough to monitor a pediatric emergency room, they were capable of anything. "Doctor, please... do whatever you need to do to save my children. I'm going to step outside for one minute to make a call."
"You can't leave the floor, Mr. Vance," Dr. Aris warned sternly. "Social Services is already on their way up. You'll need to provide a full statement."
"I'll be right outside the door," I said, my voice tight. "I'm not leaving them."
I stepped out into the tiled hallway, my mind racing at light speed. Who were these people? What was in that locked storage room in our basement? And why was my wife acting as their accomplice—or their prisoner?
I pulled out my phone and dialed Detective Marcus Brody, an old college friend who worked in the city's Special Victims and Major Crimes Division. Brody was a tough, pragmatic investigator who had seen the worst of humanity, but he was also someone I trusted with my life.
"Mark?" Brody answered on the second ring. "Hey man, aren't you supposed to be in San Francisco?"
"Brody, I need your help," I said, my voice barely above a whisper as I leaned against the hospital wall. "I'm at Saint Jude Children's Hospital. I just got home and found Lily with a broken leg and Tommy near death from fever. Sarah... Sarah hid them from me."
There was a sudden, sharp pause on the line. "What do you mean she hid them? Did she abuse them?"
"It's worse than that," I said, watching the door to my children's room. "Lily told me a man came to the house and knocked a bookcase over on her. Sarah wrapped her leg in homemade plaster instead of bringing her to an ER. And Brody... I just got a text message from a burner number with a picture of me inside the hospital room. They threatened Tommy's life if I talk about a locked storage room in my basement."
"Jesus Christ, Mark," Brody breathed out, his tone instantly switching from casual friend to hardened police officer. "Listen to me very carefully. Do not go back to that house alone. Stay right where you are with the kids. I'm putting together a unit right now and heading to Saint Jude's."
"No, Brody, wait," I urged panic creeping into my chest. "If they see police swarming the hospital, they might do something reckless. Whoever is doing this is watching me right now."
"Then we play this smart," Brody said firmly. "I'm coming in plainclothes. I'll have two plainclothes officers secure the hallway outside trauma room three. Once your kids are safe in the ICU under guard, you and I are going back to your house to see what's behind that locked door."
"Understood," I said. "Brody... what if Sarah is part of this?"
"If she's part of it, she's going to jail for a very long time," Brody replied coldly. "Hang tight, Mark. I'll be there in ten minutes."
I hung up and returned to the room. Dr. Aris was prepping Lily for an emergency surgery to reset her leg bone and clean out the infection. Tommy had been hooked up to an IV drip with high-grade antibiotics and fluids, his breathing slightly less raspy, though his fever remained dangerously high.
I sat beside Lily's bed and took her small, cold hand. "Lily, look at me. You're going to sleep for a little bit, and when you wake up, your leg is going to feel much better. Daddy is right here. I'm not going anywhere."
Lily looked at me with huge, frightened eyes. "Dad... is Mommy mad at us?"
My heart shattered into a thousand pieces. "No, baby. You did nothing wrong. You were the bravest little girl in the world today. You saved Tommy."
"Mommy was crying," Lily whispered softly, her eyelids growing heavy from the sedative the nurse had administered. "Before you came home... Mommy was crying in the kitchen. She said she was sorry. She said... 'Your father's brother is going to kill us all if we don't do what he says.'"
I froze. My hands went completely numb.
My father's brother?
My father had died ten years ago, leaving behind a tangled web of corporate debt and a disgraced pharmaceutical company that had gone bankrupt under mysterious circumstances. But my father didn't have a brother. He was an only child.
Unless... Lily had misunderstood. Unless she wasn't talking about my father's brother.
She was talking about my brother.
Julian Vance.
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Julian—my wealthy, estranged older brother who had vanished six years ago after being indicted for international corporate fraud and illegal biomedical trading. The brother I had declared dead in my mind years ago.
The realization hit me like an avalanche. Julian wasn't dead. He was back. And somehow, my wife had been working with him behind my back.
