Chương 4
“Connected to what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I know.”
The frustration on his face made her step back.
“I thought maybe you knew something about Claire.”
Ethan froze.
The airport noise seemed to fade for a second.
“What did you say?”
“Claire.”
“How do you know her name?”
Lena looked at Mia.
“I saw it in the document.”
“What document?”
“The one with the transfer review.”
Ethan stared at her.
“You saw my daughter’s mother’s name in a hospital document and decided not to mention it?”
“I didn’t know if it was the same person.”
“You knew enough to ask me about her leaving.”
Lena swallowed.
“I was trying to understand what I was looking at.”
“And I was supposed to just trust that?”
“No.”
Her voice became smaller.
“I was trying to make sure I wasn’t wrong.”
Ethan looked down at Mia.
The baby had started waking up.
Her eyes opened slowly, confused by the movement and voices around her.
He immediately softened.
The anger remained, but something else pushed through it.
The need to protect.
“We’re not doing this here.”
Lena nodded.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
The irony was not lost on either of them.
For the first time, Lena almost smiled.
Almost.
“There’s a coffee shop downstairs.”
“I don’t need coffee.”
“I do.”
The answer surprised him.
She looked exhausted.
Not mysteriously exhausted.
Human exhausted.
Ethan hesitated.
Every instinct told him not to follow a stranger deeper into a problem he did not understand.
But walking away did not erase what she had told him.
And Claire’s name sitting inside some hospital document was not something he could ignore.
They moved to the lower level of the airport.
The coffee shop was crowded with travelers waiting between flights.
A businessman spoke loudly into a headset.
A teenager complained about a delayed connection.
A little girl dropped a muffin and looked devastated until her father bought another one.
Ethan noticed all of it.
He hated that the world kept being normal.
He sat across from Lena at a small table near the wall.
Mia rested in the carrier against his chest.
He had bought the carrier two days after she was born because his arms were beginning to hurt from holding her constantly.
Claire had laughed when he first brought it home.
She had said he looked like he was preparing for a mountain expedition instead of caring for a newborn.
The memory came without warning.
Her laughing while standing barefoot in their kitchen.
Her hair tied up.
A dish towel over her shoulder.
For a moment, he saw the person he had loved before everything broke.
Then he remembered the empty apartment.
The note on the counter.
The unanswered calls.
“You still love her.”
Lena’s voice pulled him back.
Ethan looked up.
“What?”
“Claire.”
He looked away.
“That’s not your business.”
“No.”
She touched the paper cup in front of her.
“But it affects how you see all of this.”
“You don’t know me.”
“No.”
A pause.
“But I know grief makes people hold onto the version of someone they lost.”
Ethan studied her.
“You talk like someone who has done that.”
Lena looked down.
“I have.”
Neither of them spoke for a while.
The coffee shop noise filled the space.
Finally, Ethan leaned forward.
“Tell me everything you know.”
Lena nodded.
“After Ava died, I kept asking the hospital for answers.”
She looked at her hands.
“Not because I thought they killed her.”
Ethan noticed the way she chose the words.
“Because you thought they lied.”
“Yes.”
She took a breath.
“I found small things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Dates that didn’t match.”
“Names that changed.”
“Notes that were entered after the fact.”
Ethan listened.
“Then the transfer review appeared.”
“What is that?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“I know.”
She opened her phone.
“I saved a screenshot before the access disappeared.”
She slid the phone across the table.
The image showed a hospital system page.
Most of it was blocked out.
There were no medical details.
No private information.
Only a few lines.
Patient review.
Newborn transfer.
March eighteenth.
Status: amended.
Ethan stared at the date.
His daughter’s birthday.
“What does amended mean?”
“Usually it means someone changed something.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
He looked up.
“But you think it has something to do with Ava.”
“I think it has something to do with why I was sent a document connected to your daughter.”
Ethan handed the phone back.
“Why would someone send it to you?”
Lena’s expression changed.
“That is the question I’ve been trying to answer.”
The answer bothered him.
Not because it was incomplete.
Because it was the first thing she had said that sounded like she truly had no idea.
A notification appeared on her phone.
Both of them looked at it.
Another message.
Lena picked it up slowly.
Her face went pale.
“What?”
She did not speak.
“Lena.”
She turned the screen toward him.
This time the message was not anonymous.
It contained a photograph.
A picture taken from a distance.
Ethan carrying Mia through the airport after they left the gate.
His stomach dropped.
The photo had been taken minutes earlier.
Under it were three words.
YOU WERE WARNED.
Ethan pushed his chair back.
The movement startled Mia, and she began to fuss.
He immediately stopped.
His first reaction was anger.
His second was guilt.
His third was fear.
Someone had watched them.
Someone had taken a picture of his daughter.
And someone knew exactly where they were.
Lena stood.
“We need to leave.”
Ethan looked at her.
“No.”
Her face tightened.
“What?”
“We don’t run.”
“You don’t understand.”
“No.”
He picked up the diaper bag.
“But I understand my daughter is in that picture.”
The certainty in his voice surprised her.
He looked toward the crowded terminal.
“Before today, I thought my biggest problem was proving I could take care of her.”
May you like
He looked back at Lena.
“Now I need to know who thinks they have the right to decide what happens to her.”
