Chapter 6 - The Room With the Red Chair
Detective Ortiz did not let me go to Suite 214.
That was becoming a theme in our relationship.
He sent two officers and requested a search warrant while Daniel and I stayed at the hospital with the children.
“Northline rented the office yesterday because they know we’re looking,” I said.
Daniel sat in the corner with his laptop open.
“Or because they knew Ethan left something there and they only just found out where.”
“How would they find out?”
He looked toward Leo’s room.
“That is the question.”
I did not like any answer I could think of.
Only a small group of people knew about the note.
Police.
Daniel.
Caroline.
Hospital staff who may have overheard pieces.
And Rebecca’s legal team knew a hidden item had been found at her house, though not necessarily what it contained.
The circle was already too large.
“Someone is leaking information,” I said.
Daniel did not disagree.
At noon, the hospital cleared Leo for discharge the following morning.
His leg was protected in a new cast.
The doctor gave me a list of instructions long enough to qualify as a short novel.
No running.
No jumping.
No stairs without help.
Medication on schedule.
Follow-up appointments.
Physical therapy later.
Leo listened to all of it with increasing disgust.
“No running for how long?”
The doctor smiled.
“A while.”
“That isn’t a number.”
“You really are your father’s son,” I said.
Leo looked pleased by that.
Maya sat beside him arranging crackers into a straight line.
She had begun talking more.
Not much.
But enough to tell Elena, my house manager, over video call that she wanted “yellow bananas, no strings.”
Elena had replied with the seriousness of a military quartermaster.
“We will secure acceptable bananas.”
Maya had smiled.
It was the first time I had seen her smile without looking at Leo for permission.
That mattered more than any investigation.
At three, Ortiz called.
“They’re inside Suite 214.”
I walked to the far end of the hallway.
“And?”
“It is almost empty.”
“Almost.”
“There’s a red leather chair.”
I closed my eyes.
Ethan.
Even under pressure, he had built his clue exactly as Leo would remember it.
“What else?”
“A desk bolted to the floor.”
“Bolted?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We’re finding out.”
He ended the call before I could ask more.
Forty minutes later he called again.
“There’s a compartment beneath the desk.”
“What’s in it?”
“A flash drive.”
“Only that?”
“And a photograph.”
“Of what?”
He hesitated.
“Ethan and Victor Hale.”
My jaw tightened.
“When?”
“Date stamp says nine months ago.”
“Where?”
“Looks like a parking garage.”
I pictured Ethan meeting Victor in secret.
It did not fit anything I knew about my brother.
Or maybe it fit a part I had never been allowed to see.
“What is on the drive?”
“Encrypted.”
“Can your people open it?”
“They’re trying.”
“Try faster.”
“Excellent technical advice.”
I ignored that.
“Did Northline put anything in the office?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“A new lock on the door and a wireless camera facing the desk.”
The pattern made my skin crawl.
Cameras.
Always cameras.
“Were they watching for someone?”
“Looks that way.”
“For me?”
“Maybe.”
“For Leo?”
Ortiz went quiet.
That possibility had entered his mind too.
“They could not know Leo remembered the room,” he said.
“Unless they heard the interview.”
“That room is secure.”
“Unless they heard us before the interview.”
Another silence.
“Thomas, do not start investigating the hospital staff.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“That sentence worries me.”
“I have lawyers for that.”
“Somehow worse.”
I ended the call before the conversation became insulting.
Before Rebecca’s new motion arrived, I spent an hour on the hospital floor building a city out of paper cups with Maya.
Leo supervised from the bed and criticized our engineering.
“That tower is crooked.”
“It has character,” I said.
“It’s going to fall.”
“It is modern architecture.”
Maya placed a cracker on top.
“Roof.”
“Exactly.”
Leo sighed.
“Both of you are bad at this.”
A nurse passed the doorway, looked at the cup city, then looked at me.
I could see the question on her face.
People who knew my name did not expect to find me sitting cross-legged on a hospital floor while a four-year-old ordered me to make a garage for a stuffed bear the hospital had given her.
I was beginning to enjoy disappointing expectations.
Maya knocked over one tower by accident.
The cups scattered.
She froze.
Her face changed so quickly I almost missed it.
Fear.
Not fear of the mess.
Fear of what came after a mistake.
She looked at me.
I kept my voice calm.
“Well.”
She did not move.
“Our building permit has been revoked.”
Leo laughed.
Maya still watched me.
I picked up one cup.
“Help me rebuild?”
She blinked.
“No mad?”
The question cut through everything.
“No.”
“Cup fall.”
“I saw.”
“No mad?”
“No.”
She slowly picked up another cup.
Then another.
By the fifth cup, her shoulders had relaxed.
Leo watched her.
His smile faded.
“She used to hide when she spilled stuff.”
I looked at him.
“Where?”
“Under the kitchen table.”
“Did Rebecca get angry?”
Leo shrugged in the careful way children do when they are deciding whether a memory is safe to say.
“She said Maya did things on purpose.”
Maya stacked a cup upside down.
“Bad girl,” she whispered.
My entire body went still.
Dr. Keller had warned me about correcting labels gently, not dramatically.
I picked up another cup.
“No.”
Maya looked at me.
“Cup fell.”
“Yes.”
“That means the cup fell.”
She waited.
“It does not mean anything about you.”
Leo looked between us.
Maya whispered, “Not bad?”
“Not bad.”
She stared at me for another second.
Then she put a cracker on the new tower.
“Roof.”
“Best roof in Austin.”
Leo groaned.
“That is not a roof.”
For the next twenty minutes, we argued about architecture.
It was ridiculous.
It was ordinary.
And it taught me more about what had happened in Rebecca’s house than some of the police reports.
Fear had been built into small moments.
So safety would have to be built the same way.
Cup by cup.
Meal by meal.
Promise by promise.
That evening, Rebecca filed an emergency motion to regain contact with the children.
Her attorney claimed the police investigation had become “contaminated by Thomas Moretti’s influence.”
Daniel read the filing aloud in the family room.
I stared at him.
“My influence?”
“She’s building a defense.”
“She locked them downstairs.”
“Allegedly.”
“Do not use that word in this room.”
Daniel sighed.
“In court, every fact has a process.”
“Children should not need a process to be believed.”
“No.”
He closed the document.
“But if we want the truth to survive, we follow one.”
That was becoming the most difficult lesson of my life.
Rebecca’s motion was denied within an hour.
The judge cited the ongoing forensic investigation and the children’s stated fear of returning.
For the first time all day, I breathed easier.
Then my private phone rang.
Very few people had that number.
I looked at the screen.
UNKNOWN.
I answered without speaking.
A man’s voice came through.
Calm.
Cultured.
Older.
“You have your brother’s stubbornness.”
My entire body went still.
“Who is this?”
“You know.”
Victor Hale.
I had heard him speak at enough charity dinners to recognize the smooth, measured rhythm.
I walked away from the nurses’ station.
“Why are you calling me?”
“To prevent a misunderstanding.”
“You rented Suite 214.”
A pause.
“I have many companies.”
“That was not an answer.”
“You are very emotional right now.”
I almost smiled.
Men who wanted to control a conversation often called the other person emotional.
“What misunderstanding?”
“Your brother became involved in matters he did not understand.”
“Ethan understood numbers better than anyone I’ve ever met.”
“Numbers are not people.”
“What did he find?”
Hale ignored the question.
“Those children have suffered enough.”
My hand tightened.
“You do not say their names.”
Another pause.
Then he laughed softly.
“I see your reputation is deserved.”
“You have no idea what my reputation is.”
“I know exactly what it is.”
“Then you should know calling me was a mistake.”
“No, Thomas.”
His voice lost a little warmth.
“The mistake would be making this larger than it needs to be.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means let the police deal with Rebecca.”
“And you?”
“There is no me.”
“You’re calling from somewhere.”
He ignored that too.
“Take the children home.”
“Raise them.”
“Forget your brother’s files.”
The hallway seemed suddenly silent.
“You sound afraid of a dead accountant.”
Hale’s breathing changed.
Barely.
But enough.
I had touched something.
“Your brother made mistakes.”
“So did Rebecca.”
“Rebecca is unstable.”
There it was.
Not loyalty.
Distance.
He was already preparing to let her carry everything.
“Did you hire her?” I asked.
“Goodbye, Thomas.”
“Hale.”
The line went dead.
I immediately called Ortiz.
He answered on the second ring.
“What did you do?”
“I received a call.”
“From who?”
“Victor Hale.”
The silence that followed was almost satisfying.
“Tell me everything.”
I did.
When I finished, Ortiz swore under his breath.
“That call helps us.”
“Can you trace it?”
“We’ll try.”
“He knew about the files.”
“Yes.”
“He knew about the children.”
“Yes.”
“And he called my private number.”
Ortiz went quiet.
“How many people have it?”
“Fewer than twenty.”
“Give me the list.”
“I’ll have Daniel send it.”
I ended the call.
When I turned around, Leo was in the doorway of his room in a wheelchair, a nurse behind him.
He had heard enough to know something was wrong.
“Who was that?”
“Someone who knew your dad.”
“Was he mean?”
I crouched beside the chair.
“No.”
Leo gave me a look.
“You do that thing adults do.”
“What thing?”
“Say one word when you mean another one.”
I almost smiled.
“He was not friendly.”
“That means mean.”
“Close enough.”
Leo looked down at his cast.
“Dad knew mean people sometimes.”
My chest tightened.
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged.
“Before he died, a man came to the house.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he look like?”
Leo squeezed the armrest.
“He had a shiny black ring.”
I stopped breathing.
“Did you hear his name?”
Leo shook his head.
Then he frowned.
“Maybe.”
“What?”
“Dad called him Mr. H.”
I looked at the end of the hallway.
Victor Hale had just called to tell me to forget Ethan’s files.
But Ethan had known him well enough to bring him into his home.
And Leo remembered one more thing.
“Uncle Thomas?”
“Yes?”
May you like
“Dad was scared of him.”
THE DOOR THOMAS OPENED
