Chapter 4 - The Man Behind The Curtain.
Emma stopped breathing when the curtain rings scraped across the metal rail.
The doctor stood near the doorway, looking down the corridor toward the fallen officer.
He had not seen the movement behind the bed.
Emma clutched the bunny beneath her blanket.
A shadow appeared through the thin blue curtain.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Still.
Emma reached for the nurse-call button.
A hand came through the curtain and covered hers.
"Don't scream."
The voice was male and low.
Emma's eyes widened.
The man stepped around the curtain wearing maintenance coveralls and a hospital identification badge turned backward against his chest.
He looked about fifty, with greying hair and a deep cut across his knuckles.
"My name is Thomas Reed."
Emma tried to pull her hand away.
"I knew your grandfather."
That did not make her feel safer.
Thomas looked toward the doctor.
"Dr. Mercer."
The doctor spun around.
His face changed when he saw Thomas.
"You."
Emma looked between them.
"You know him?"
Dr. Mercer shut the door and lowered his voice.
"He was hospital security the night you were born."
Emma stared at Thomas.
Thomas slowly removed his badge.
It was not a maintenance badge at all.
It was an old St. Catherine's security identification card laminated beneath a newer plastic sleeve.
The photograph showed him ten years younger.
"Your father contacted me three weeks ago," Thomas said.
Emma's entire body went rigid.
"My father is alive?"
Thomas did not answer quickly enough.
Hope became pain before Emma could stop it.
"Tell me."
"I don't know."
Thomas looked ashamed.
"But Daniel sent me instructions in case Vanessa moved you into this hospital."
Dr. Mercer stepped closer.
"Why would he know she would bring Emma here?"
Thomas's eyes moved to the bunny.
"Because this was always where the evidence was supposed to surface."
Emma felt suddenly trapped by the room itself.
Thomas explained that Arthur Carter had spent years building a private case around the missing newborn.
Every time he got close, hospital records disappeared.
Every time he found a witness, someone paid them to leave town.
Then Daniel found the original surveillance archive.
"The card in that rabbit is only the key," Thomas said.
Emma looked down at it.
"The real evidence is somewhere inside this building."
Dr. Mercer glanced toward the corridor.
"Vanessa knows that too."
Thomas nodded.
"That is why she killed the power."
Emma stared at him.
"She did that?"
"Someone did."
A radio crackled outside.
The police officer groaned from the floor.
Dr. Mercer opened the door and rushed toward him.
Thomas leaned close to Emma.
"We need the password before Vanessa reaches the old maternity wing."
Emma looked at the laptop.
The battery showed two percent.
WHERE THE SISTERS FIRST MET.
She pictured the newborn photograph.
Two babies side by side beneath yellow blankets.
Then she remembered something Grandpa Arthur used to say whenever she asked where she was born.
"Room twelve gave me two miracles."
Emma typed ROOM12.
ACCESS DENIED.
The battery dropped to one percent.
Thomas whispered a curse.
Emma looked again at the photograph.
Behind the infants was a small wooden plaque shaped like a moon.
A word was painted across it.
LULLABY.
Emma typed the word.
The locked file opened.
Before the screen died, one line appeared.
EMILY CARTER - CURRENT LOCATION: ST. CATHERINE'S, LOWER LEVEL B.
Emma looked toward Thomas.
May you like
"She's here."
Then something slammed into the hospital door from the other side.
