Chương 3
He held Mia with one arm and unfolded the paper with the other.
It was not a medical record.
It was an email printout.
A routine apology.
A reference number.
A statement that an attachment had been sent incorrectly.
Then he saw the line that made him stop.
The attachment description included the words “newborn transfer review.”
“What does this mean?”
Lena shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“I know.”
The anger in his voice did not make her defensive.
It made her look tired.
“I have spent months trying to get someone to tell me what happened to Ava.”
“And now you think it connects to my daughter.”
“I think someone at that hospital made a mistake.”
“A mistake that involved two babies?”
“I don’t know.”
Ethan folded the paper.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
He looked at her.
“And you expect me to trust you because you’re honest about not knowing?”
“No.”
The answer surprised him.
“What then?”
“I expect you to trust that I’m scared too.”
The baby moved between them.
Ethan immediately checked her face.
She made a small sound and settled again.
Lena watched him.
“You always do that.”
“Do what?”
“Check if she’s okay before you react.”
Ethan looked away.
“I’m her father.”
“I know.”
The words were simple.
They mattered more than he wanted them to.
The plane touched down a few minutes later.
Everyone around them immediately started moving.
Seatbelts clicked.
Phones turned back on.
People stood before the announcement finished.
Ethan stayed seated.
Lena did too.
Neither of them seemed ready to step back into a normal airport.
When the aisle cleared slightly, Ethan finally spoke.
“What happens when we get off this plane?”
Lena looked toward the terminal windows.
“I need to find out who sent that message.”
“And I need to know why my daughter’s name was attached to your records.”
She nodded.
“Then we have the same problem.”
“No.”
Ethan’s voice was firm.
“We have different problems.”
Lena looked at him.
“My problem is that I don’t know who is trying to hide something about my daughter.”
He paused.
“Your problem is that you don’t know whether you’re protecting me or leading me into something worse.”
For the first time, Lena looked like she had no answer.
That silence felt more honest than anything else she had said.
They walked off the plane separately.
Ethan kept Mia close as they moved through the airport crowd.
He expected to feel safer surrounded by people.
Instead, every stranger seemed like another person who could know something he didn’t.
Near baggage claim, Lena stopped suddenly.
“Wait.”
Ethan turned.
“What?”
She was staring at the airport entrance.
A man in a gray jacket stood near the doors, looking at his phone.
Nothing about him was unusual.
That was what bothered Ethan.
“What?”
Lena’s voice dropped.
“That’s the man who delivered the records notice to me.”
Ethan looked toward the entrance.
The man looked up at that exact moment.
Their eyes met.
Then the man turned and walked away.
Ethan took one step forward.
Lena grabbed his arm.
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because if he wanted us to follow him, he would have waited.”
Ethan watched the man disappear into the crowd.
His daughter slept against his shoulder.
His custody hearing waited somewhere ahead.
And now a stranger he had met at thirty thousand feet had given him a reason to believe the first two weeks of his daughter’s life might not be the story he had been told.
His phone rang before he could say anything else.
The number was unknown.
Ethan answered.
No one spoke at first.
Then a woman’s voice came through.
“Mr. Cole, if Lena Parker is with you, you need to leave the airport immediately.”
Ethan’s grip tightened around the phone.
“Who is this?”
The line stayed silent for one second.
Then the voice said, “The person who knows what happened the night your daughter was born.”
The call ended.
And Ethan stood in the middle of the airport, holding Mia, with no idea whether the warning had just saved him or pushed him exactly where someone wanted him to go.
Ethan stood still until the airport noise swallowed the last trace of the call.
People moved around him carrying bags, dragging suitcases, checking arrival boards, arguing quietly with family members who had been waiting near the security barrier.
Nobody looked like they had just heard a warning that could split their life in half.
Lena watched him carefully.
“What did they say?”
Ethan lowered the phone.
He did not answer immediately.
Part of him wanted to pretend he had misheard.
That it was a wrong number.
That the voice belonged to someone else.
But the way Lena’s expression changed when she saw his face told him she already knew.
“Someone knows about us.”
Her eyebrows tightened.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not what they said.”
Ethan looked at her.
The question sounded sharper than she probably intended.
“You heard me.”
Lena looked away.
“Sorry.”
The apology annoyed him because he was beginning to recognize a pattern.
She apologized when she was afraid.
She apologized when she knew something.
She apologized when she was hiding something.
He adjusted Mia against his shoulder and looked around the terminal.
“Are we being followed?”
Lena did not answer.
That was answer enough.
“Lena.”
“I don’t know.”
He almost laughed.
The sound never came.
“Again.”
She rubbed her forehead.
“I don’t know if someone is following us.”
“But you think someone might be.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She looked toward the entrance where the man in the gray jacket had disappeared.
“Because for the last month, every time I get close to finding out what happened at St. Anne’s, someone finds a reason to make me stop.”
Ethan felt anger rise.
Not the loud kind.
The kind that made his voice quieter.
“You waited until now to tell me that?”
May you like
“I didn’t know if you were connected.”
The words hurt more than he expected.
