Alert.
He stood suddenly.
“What?” I asked.
He moved to the door and looked through the narrow window.
The hallway outside was dim.
Quiet.
Too quiet.
Then his phone buzzed.
He looked down at the screen, and all color drained from his face.
“What is it?” I asked.
He turned the phone toward me.
A photo had been sent from an unknown number.
It showed the hospital hallway outside my room.
Taken from only a few feet away.
Under it were five words.
Tell Emma I’m coming upstairs.
PART 4 — The Man in the Hospital Hallway
Daniel pressed the call button before I even managed to take a breath.
Within moments, the room erupted into movement.
A nurse hurried inside. Then hospital security entered. Then Detective Bennett’s officer from the hallway appeared, his hand already close to his radio.
Daniel showed them the message.
Everything shifted instantly.
Ethan’s bassinet was pushed behind my bed. The blinds were yanked closed. A security guard searched the bathroom, then the closet, as though Ryan might have hidden himself inside the darkness.
I lay there unable to move, every nerve in my body screaming.
Not because I thought Ryan was courageous.
Because I knew he was trapped.
And men who were trapped after building their entire lives on control were the most dangerous kind.
Detective Bennett arrived twelve minutes later, still wearing her coat, snow melting into her hair.
She wasted no time.
“Hospital lockdown is active on this floor,” she said. “Cameras are being reviewed. Emma, has Ryan ever used disguises? Borrowed IDs? Anything like that?”
“No.”
Daniel answered at the same moment. “He uses people.”
Bennett looked at him.
Daniel’s jaw tightened. “He wouldn’t walk in himself if he could send someone else.”
The words had barely left his mouth when Bennett’s phone rang.
She listened.
Her expression changed.
“Show me,” she said, then stepped into the hallway.
Nathan arrived only moments later, breathless and wild-eyed.
“I came as soon as Daniel called.”
I had never seen my brother so close to violence. His entire body looked sharpened.
“Where is he?” Nathan demanded.
“Not here,” Daniel said. “Not anymore.”
“What does that mean?”
Detective Bennett came back before Daniel could respond.
“It wasn’t Ryan,” she said.
My heart slammed once.
“Who was it?”
Bennett lifted a tablet. On the screen was security footage from twenty minutes earlier.
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