Chapter 8
Through the glass, doctors surrounded her bed.
A nurse pulled the curtain halfway, but not before I saw Tessa’s hand fall open.
Something slipped from her fingers onto the bed.
Small.
White.
Folded.
A piece of paper.
I froze.
She had been holding it the whole time.
The doctor shouted again.
The curtain closed.
I stood there, breathing like a man underwater.
Minutes passed. Or years.
When the nurse finally stepped out, her face was pale.
“She’s stable,” she said quickly. “She’s stable.”
My knees nearly gave way.
“She had a reaction,” the doctor added, stepping out behind her. “We’re investigating. No one enters except cleared medical staff.”
Evelyn’s eyes narrowed.
“A reaction to what?”
The doctor looked uncomfortable.
“We don’t know yet.”
Morrow turned to the agents.
“Lock this floor down.”
Then the nurse handed me the folded paper.
“She must have had it hidden in her gown,” she said. “We found it near her hand.”
My fingers felt numb as I opened it.
The handwriting was shaky.
Tessa’s.
Only one sentence.
Harlan, my mother didn’t die in an accident.
Below it was a name.
Evelyn Cross.
I looked up.
Evelyn was staring at the paper as if a ghost had reached through the years and touched her throat.
“What does this mean?” I asked.
She did not answer.
But her silence did.
The past had not been buried.
It had been waiting.
May you like
And Daniel Vale was not the beginning of the war.
He was only the first door.
