Chapter 6: The Empty Hospital Room
I don’t remember reaching the elevator.
I remember Maya calling for backup.
I remember Lauren running behind us.
I remember the doors taking forever to close.
By the time we reached the lobby, three police vehicles were already moving toward the hospital.
I called the nurse’s station.
No answer.
I called again.
A nurse finally picked up.
“I need you to check Room 814,” I said. “My daughter is there.”
There was a pause.
Then hurried footsteps.
“Ms. Hart?”
“Yes?”
“Your daughter isn’t in the room.”
The world tilted.
Maya grabbed my shoulders.
“Ask about the officer.”
I repeated the question.
“The officer is unconscious in the stairwell,” the nurse said. “Security is calling emergency services.”
My knees weakened.
Preston had taken Sophie.
The drive.
The laptop.
The forged transfer.
None of it mattered anymore.
Only my daughter.
We reached the hospital in under ten minutes.
Officers filled the eighth floor.
A security camera showed a person in blue medical scrubs pushing Sophie in a wheelchair toward a service elevator.
The person wore a mask and surgical cap.
But I recognized the way he moved.
Preston.
“He changed clothes somewhere inside the hospital,” Maya said.
“He planned this.”
The elevator camera showed him leaving through the underground parking level.
Sophie appeared awake but confused.
A white blanket covered her.
“She has a concussion,” I said. “She doesn’t understand what’s happening.”
Maya’s phone rang.
She listened, then looked at me.
“The tracking marker is moving again.”
Lauren opened the app.
The marker traveled north.
Toward the Hartwell family estate outside Lake Forest.
My parents’ home.
“Why would he take her there?” Lauren asked.
“Because the property is private,” I said. “Forty acres. Woods. A boathouse. No close neighbors.”
Maya ordered officers toward the estate.
Then another unknown message appeared on my phone.
Come alone. Bring Lauren’s phone.
A second message followed.
No police, or Sophie pays for your mistake.
Maya read the screen.
“You’re not going alone.”
“He’ll know if police surround the property.”
“We’ll stay out of sight.”
“He knows every road leading to that house.”
Lauren stared at the tracking map.
“There’s another entrance.”
I looked at her.
“What entrance?”
“Preston showed me before the wedding. An old maintenance road behind the north woods. It doesn’t appear on public maps.”
Maya sent the route to tactical officers.
I stared at the photograph of Sophie’s empty hospital bed.
Then I noticed something behind the pillow.
A folded piece of paper.
I walked into the room and opened it.
The handwriting belonged to Sophie.
Mommy, I put your silver stick inside the flower basket because Uncle Preston touched my jacket.
The drive had never been in the jacket when Preston searched it.
Sophie had moved it before the accusation.
At the bottom, she had added one more sentence.
The lady in the green dress took the basket.
May you like
At the wedding, only one woman had worn dark green.
My mother.
