Chapter 7
A nurse hurried past Mason’s room. The officer outside straightened.
I stood immediately.
“What’s happening?”
He didn’t answer.
From somewhere down the hall came a woman’s voice.
Soft.
Pleading.
“I’m his mother. I just need to see him.”
My blood froze.
Ellie.
The officer stepped fully in front of Mason’s door.
“Ma’am, stay inside,” he told me.
But through the narrow window, I saw her.
She stood at the nurses’ station wearing a gray coat over hospital scrubs.
For one insane moment, I thought she had become a nurse.
Then I realized the scrubs were too large, the badge clipped to her pocket turned backward.
A disguise.
Her blonde hair was tucked under a surgical cap. Her face was pale and shining with sweat.
She looked smaller than I remembered.
Fragile.
Almost childlike.
And absolutely terrifying.
Two security guards approached her from either side.
Ellie raised her hands.
“I’m not here to cause trouble,” she said. “Someone called me. They said Mason needed me.”
“No one called you,” Carla said, stepping into view.
Ellie’s eyes moved to her.
Then to Mason’s room.
Then to me.
Our eyes met through the glass.
She smiled.
It was not a warm smile.
It was the smile of someone recognizing a thief.
“You shouldn’t have undressed him, Helen,” she called.
The officer opened the door just enough to block me from stepping out.
“Do not engage,” he said.
But I couldn’t help it.
“What did you do to him?” I shouted.
Ellie’s expression changed.
For the first time, her perfect mask cracked.
“I protected him.”
The words rang down the hallway.
Carla took a step forward.
“Ellie, you need to come with security.”
Ellie shook her head.
“You think bruises mean harm because that’s all you know how to see.”
One guard reached for her arm.
She jerked away.
“No. No, don’t touch me.”
“Ma’am—”
“He’s not like other babies,” she said, louder now. “He remembers.”
The hallway went still.
Even the officer at my door seemed to hold his breath.
Ellie’s eyes filled with tears.
“He remembers the first one.”
My knees weakened.
The first one.
Detective Delaney had been right to ask questions.
Thomas had been right to fear her.
But nothing about her looked afraid now. She looked convinced. Completely, horribly convinced.
She reached into her coat pocket.
The officer outside Mason’s room drew his weapon.
“Hands where I can see them!”
Ellie froze.
Slowly, she pulled out not a gun, not a knife, but a small blue baby blanket.
Faded. Folded. Stained dark at one corner.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
The hallway fell silent.
Ellie held it against her chest.
“He came back,” she whispered. “And this time he won’t stop looking at me.”
Security moved then.
Two guards took her arms. She screamed—not like a trapped woman, but like someone watching a house burn with a child inside.
“No! Don’t leave him with her! Helen, listen to me! Ask Thomas about the basement! Ask him what he buried!”
The words hit the hallway like broken glass.
Thomas?
The basement?
The officers pulled her backward.
She twisted, eyes wild, locked on mine.
May you like
“He told you I was the monster because he needed you to stop looking at him!”
Then she was gone around the corner, her screams fading behind the sealed doors of the pediatric wing.
