Chapter 8 - The Missing Hour.
Gavin swore under his breath.
Adrian did not react.
He was staring at nothing, the way he sometimes did when a memory moved just beyond reach.
Emma had seen that expression once before.
It had happened when thunder rolled over the estate and Adrian stopped speaking mid-sentence.
Now she understood why.
The crash had happened in a storm.
Gavin stepped closer.
“Adrian, I did not give her that ring.”
“I know.”
Gavin blinked.
“You know?”
“If you were working with her, you would have worn another ring today and pretended nothing was missing.”
Gavin looked offended by the logic and relieved by it at the same time.
“Then why did you accuse me?”
“I asked questions.”
“You do that like an accusation.”
Emma almost smiled despite herself.
Adrian’s phone rang again.
Marcus’s voice came through quietly.
“Celeste met someone in a restricted wing.”
“Who?”
“I couldn’t get close enough.”
“Description?”
“Male, sixties, gray hair, hospital administrator badge.”
Adrian knew the name before Marcus said it.
“Dr. Nolan Pierce.”
The room went still.
Pierce had overseen Adrian’s rehabilitation for four months.
He had also been one of the first people to tell Adrian that parts of the night of the crash might remain unclear forever.
Adrian turned toward the window.
“What do you remember?” Emma asked gently.
Gavin gave her a warning look.
Adrian answered anyway.
“Rain.”
His voice was distant.
“My driver telling me to hold on.”
“A horn.”
“Then the hospital.”
Gavin looked down.
Adrian continued.
“They said I was unconscious for three hours.”
Emma’s brow furrowed.
“What does that have to do with an hour?”
Adrian turned back.
“Because I wasn’t.”
Gavin’s head lifted.
Adrian pressed two fingers to his temple.
“I remember waking in the ambulance.”
“You never told me that.”
“I thought it was a dream.”
Emma waited.
Adrian closed his eyes.
There had been another voice.
Not the paramedic.
A man speaking close to his ear.
Adrian had been unable to move.
Unable to focus.
But he remembered a sentence now.
“He said, ‘You should have signed when you had the chance.’”
Gavin stared at him.
“Signed what?”
Adrian opened his eyes.
“I don’t know.”
Emma thought of the forged foundation documents.
“Maybe someone needed your signature because you refused something before the crash.”
Adrian looked at her.
That was possible.
Worse, it sounded familiar.
Marcus called again.
“Celeste is leaving the clinic.”
“Stay on Pierce.”
“There’s another issue.”
“What?”
“The clinic’s records office just flagged an access request.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“Whose records?”
“Yours.”
“Requested by whom?”
Marcus paused.
“The account belongs to a doctor who retired ten months ago.”
Emma stood.
“They’re trying to erase something.”
Adrian turned his chair toward the door.
Gavin stepped in front of him.
“You are not going there.”
Adrian’s eyes went cold.
“Move.”
“You have security for this.”
“Move.”
Gavin did not.
Then Emma quietly stepped between them.
“Both of you stop.”
Adrian looked up at her, stunned.
Emma took a breath.
“If they expect you to rush there angry, then rushing there angry is exactly what you should not do.”
A long silence followed.
Adrian finally looked at Marcus’s live location on the phone.
“Fine.”
Gavin relaxed.
Adrian turned to Emma.
“We don’t go to the clinic.”
May you like
She nodded.
“We make the clinic come to us.”
