Chương 2
My hands had started shaking. I slid them into my pockets so no one would see.
“What do you need from me?”
“Medical history. Family history. Any known genetic conditions. Blood disorders. Reactions to anesthesia. Anything she may not have disclosed.”
“She’s allergic to penicillin. She had rheumatic fever when she was eleven. Her mother died at fifty-two from an undiagnosed heart condition.”
Kline’s eyes sharpened. “What kind?”
“They called it sudden cardiac death. Elena was told it might have been a dilated cardiomyopathy, but the autopsy was inconclusive.”
“Was Elena ever evaluated?”
“Every year while we were married. Her last echocardiogram was normal.”
“When was that?”
“Eleven months ago.”
He nodded to a resident, who wrote it down.
“Do you know her blood type?”
“A negative.”
“And yours?”
“O positive.”
His gaze flicked toward Madison, then returned to me.
“Does Ms. Ashford have a health care proxy?”
“I don’t know.”
“She named a cousin in her file. We’re trying to reach her. If Elena loses consciousness before we obtain consent, we will proceed under emergency authority. I’m asking about paternity because the neonatal team will need information, and because the patient wrote a note on intake indicating the father should be contacted if her condition worsened.”
“She wrote my name?”
“She wrote Adrian. No number. No last name.”
The hallway tilted slightly.
“Can I see her?”
“No.”
“I need thirty seconds.”
“You need to stay out of our way.”
The double doors opened behind him. A nurse called his name.
Kline turned, then looked back at me. “We’ll update you after the delivery.”
“Save both of them.”
“We intend to.”
“I’ll pay for whatever—”
His face tightened, not with anger but exhaustion.
“This is not a billing problem, Mr. Vale.”
Then he disappeared through the doors.
Madison waited until they closed.
“You just told a room full of strangers that you’re the father.”
“I am.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I can count.”
“So can I.” Her voice rose. “Thirty-four weeks is not eight months.”
“Pregnancy isn’t counted from conception.”
She stared at me.
The answer had come too quickly.
Madison had spent six years directing press strategy for Vale Meridian. She knew when someone had prepared a statement, and she knew when an answer came from the part of a person that did not require preparation.
Her mouth tightened.
“You slept with her after you signed the papers.”
I looked past her.
A cleaning woman pushed a yellow bucket along the far wall. One wheel squeaked every rotation. She glanced at us once, recognized me, then lowered her eyes.
Madison caught my sleeve.
“Answer me.”
“Yes.”
She let go as if the fabric had burned her.
“We were already together.”
“No. We had dinner twice.”
“You kissed me.”
“Yes.”
“You told me the marriage was over.”
“It was.”
“But you went home and slept with her.”
“I went home and found my wife sitting in the dark with a bottle of whiskey and half her life packed into boxes.”
“Ex-wife.”
“She wasn’t yet.”
Madison stepped backward. Her face had lost its polished certainty.
The nurse at the desk looked up.
I lowered my voice.
“This is not where we do this.”
“You don’t get to decide where I find out my boyfriend may have a secret child.”
A monitor alarm sounded beyond the doors.
Every muscle in my body locked.
People moved quickly behind the glass. A nurse ran past carrying a tray. Someone shouted for respiratory therapy.
Madison followed my eyes.
Her anger did not disappear. It became smaller, crowded by something she did not want to feel.
“Is she dying?”
“I don’t know.”
For once, the truth was the harshest thing available.
Madison sat in the nearest chair. Her silver dress gathered around her knees, too elegant for the plastic armrests and vending machines. She took out her phone, looked at the screen, then put it away without unlocking it.
Jonas stood several yards from us.
He had been with me for twelve years. Before that, he had served in the Marines, worked diplomatic security, and spent nine months in a hospital bed after a truck bomb in Kabul damaged his spine. He trusted elevators less than stairs and doctors less than both.
Now he was staring at the name on the nurses’ monitor.
ELENA A. REED.
Not Ashford.
He moved closer.
“She came in under another name.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“The tracking board. It said Reed before they changed it.”
Madison lifted her head.
Jonas continued in a low voice. “I saw it when they brought her through. Elena A. Reed. Date of birth matched.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Find out why.”
The old reflex returned: identify the breach, control the perimeter, follow the money.
Jonas did not move.
“Boss.”
“What?”
His eyes went to Madison and back.
“There may be more to find than you’re going to like.”
I stepped toward him. “Do you know something?”
“No.”
It was the kind of no that had edges.
“Jonas.”
“I know she disappeared carefully. Better than most people can disappear without help.”
“Did you help her?”
A beat passed.
Madison stood.
Jonas’s jaw shifted. “Not here.”
My hand closed around his jacket.
One of the security men turned away, pretending to study a poster about infant sleep safety.
Jonas did not resist. That made me angrier.
“Did you help my wife vanish?”
“She asked me for one thing. Once.”
“What thing?”
“To check whether one of our vehicles had followed her.”
“And?”
“It had.”
The hallway seemed to empty, though no one left.
“Whose vehicle?”
“Fleet registration was buried through two subsidiaries. I couldn’t trace the assignment.”
“You told me the security audit found nothing.”
“I was told to stop looking.”
“By whom?”
“You.”
I released him.
Jonas reached inside his jacket slowly and took out his phone.
May you like
“The order came from your secure account. It included an authentication code only you, I, and three people in executive security had access to.”
“I never sent it.”
