Chương 6
Hannah turned her face toward the window. Frost had gathered in the corners, turning the city beyond it into a pale blur.
“After they told me he was dead, Earl called,” she said. “He left messages. I blocked the number.”
“Why?” Claire asked.
“What did I need from him? Details? An apology? A stranger telling me my husband died bravely because he had to pull that stranger out of a fire?”
“He said Daniel asked him to find you.”
“He found me. I chose not to answer.”
“Did you know he had Daniel’s tag?”
“One of them. The casualty officer said the second was missing.”
Tessa crossed one ankle over the other. “Daniel’s parents say Earl caused his death.”
“His parents need Earl to be the villain. Otherwise they have to admit Daniel went back because that’s who he was.”
“Do you believe Earl caused it?”
Hannah’s mouth tightened.
“Yes,” she said. “And no. Both are worse.”
A cardiac nurse stepped into the room and announced that Hannah had reached her limit. Claire and Tessa stood.
“Wait,” Hannah said.
Claire paused.
“Who’s holding my baby now?”
“No one. She’s resting in the incubator.”
“Does she cry?”
“Yes.”
“Does somebody come?”
“Always.”
Hannah’s eyes closed.
“Not him,” she said. “Anybody but him.”
The hospital located Hannah’s phone in a sealed belongings bag. The screen had cracked during the emergency transport, but it still powered on. Tessa helped Hannah retrieve a photograph of the marriage certificate and sent it through the hospital’s secure system to legal services.
Daniel and Hannah had married eleven months earlier in Colorado Springs.
The phone also contained hundreds of unanswered messages from unfamiliar numbers, collection notices, two employment termination emails, and a voice message from Daniel dated the night before his death.
Hannah refused to play it.
Robert and Marlene arrived at Willow Creek shortly after noon.
Robert Reed was sixty-one, thick through the chest, with a red face and silver hair combed straight back. Marlene was smaller, wearing a camel-colored coat that appeared too thin for the cold. She held a gift-store stuffed bear against her stomach.
They stood at the NICU reception desk and demanded entry.
Tessa met them outside the locked doors.
“We drove across the river,” Robert said, as if the distance proved entitlement.
“I understand.”
“My granddaughter is in there.”
“Hannah has not authorized visitation.”
“She is not in any condition to make decisions.”
“She is alert, legally married to your son at the time of his death, and the infant’s medical decision-maker.”
Robert pointed at the locked door. “That child is Reed blood.”
Tessa’s voice stayed even. “She is also a patient, not an inheritance.”
Marlene closed her eyes briefly.
Robert turned toward Claire, who had come to the desk after hearing the raised voice. “You the charge nurse?”
“Yes.”
“Then act like one.”
Claire had received insults from frightened families for two decades. She knew how to let most of them pass through without lodging anywhere.
“Your granddaughter is receiving appropriate care,” she said. “You will not enter without authorization.”
“Ransom got in.”
The accusation drew the receptionist’s attention.
“He was an approved volunteer,” Claire said.
“Approved by who?”
“The hospital.”
“And you let him touch Daniel’s baby?”
Claire felt the heat of shame before she identified its source. She was not ashamed that Earl had held the child. She was ashamed that she had nearly prevented it for reasons she had disguised as policy.
“Mr. Ransom did not know the infant’s identity when he received his assignment.”
Robert laughed once. “You believe that?”
“I believe what our records support.”
“He follows Hannah for months, works his way into the hospital, and happens to land beside her baby.”
Marlene touched his sleeve. “Robert.”
“No. Somebody needs to say it.”
Tessa stepped between him and the reception desk. “Do you have evidence that Earl Ransom followed Hannah?”
“He went to her old apartment.”
“He was trying to deliver Daniel’s property.”
“He called her twenty-three times.”
Claire looked at Tessa.
“That number came from the casualty officer,” Robert said. “I filed a complaint.”
“Was Earl instructed to stop contact?” Tessa asked.
“Yes.”
“Did he?”
Robert’s mouth shifted.
“Did he?” she repeated.
“Yes.”
Marlene looked toward the secure doors. “Could we just see her through the window?”
“No,” Claire said.
Marlene’s face crumpled slightly, then recovered. She held out the stuffed bear. “Can she have this?”
“Not inside the incubator. We can keep it with her belongings if Hannah approves.”
“It’s new.”
“I understand.”
“I washed my hands before we came.”
Claire softened her voice. “This is not about whether your hands are clean.”
Marlene looked down at the bear.
Robert took her elbow. “We’re getting an attorney.”
“That is your right,” Tessa said.
They left without the bear. Marlene placed it on a chair near the elevator and did not retrieve it.
At three that afternoon, Earl returned to the hospital.
He did not enter the NICU. Claire found him in the main lobby sitting beneath a banner advertising a blood drive. His dark coat lay folded beside him. Snow had melted across the shoulders of his T-shirt.
She stopped several feet away.
“Hannah said no.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Her parents-in-law called me.”
“Daniel’s parents.”
“They aren’t hers.”
The correction carried a history Claire did not understand.
“They said they were filing for an emergency guardianship,” Earl continued.
“They cannot simply take custody of a hospitalized infant.”
“I told them that.”
“You spoke to Robert?”
“He called from a number I didn’t recognize.”
“What did he want?”
“For me to disappear before I ruined their chances.”
Claire sat at the opposite end of the bench.
People crossed the lobby between them, shaking snow from coats, carrying flowers, arguing with parking validation machines. A child in a bright green jacket spun around a support column until his father caught the hood and stopped him.
“Did you come to see the baby?” Claire asked.
“No.”
“Hannah?”
“No.”
May you like
“Then why are you here?”
Earl reached into his coat and removed a yellowed envelope sealed in a clear plastic evidence sleeve. A handwritten name appeared on the front.
