Chapter 3 - The Ghost of Three Months Ago
I sat in the hard chair beside Lily’s bed all through the night. The digital clock on the wall glowed a harsh green, ticking away the minutes. 3:15 a.m. 4:00 a.m. 5:20 a.m.
Outside, the rain had stopped, leaving the city streets slick and reflective under the amber streetlights. Inside the room, the only sound was the rhythmic hiss of the oxygen machine and the soft, shallow sound of Lily breathing through her nose. Her mouth was clamped shut by titanium wires and rubber bands, a cruel medical muzzle designed to let her bones knit back together.
Every time she stirred, groaning softly in her sleep, a white-hot fury flared in my chest. I wanted to hunt Mark down. I wanted to take him apart piece by piece, the way he had taken my daughter apart. But my military training held me back. Anger made soldiers sloppy. Rage made mistakes. If I wanted to destroy Mark Vance—if I wanted to make sure he never walked free, never smiled at another innocent woman, and never touched my daughter again—I needed strategy, proof, and absolute, undeniable execution.
I pulled the crumpled piece of paper out of my pocket.
Ask her what happened three months ago.
I unfolded it carefully under the dim light of the bedside lamp. The handwriting was neat, feminine, but hurried—written with a trembling hand. It wasn't Lily’s handwriting. Lily wrote with loops; this was sharp, slanted, almost mechanical.
Who had slipped this into her clothes?
The ER nurse who had received Lily? Or someone else who had been in that ambulance?
I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I hadn’t called in five years.
“Yeah?” a gruff voice answered on the second ring. It was Miller, an old buddy from my private security days who now ran a private investigative firm out downtown.
“Miller. It’s Daniel Walker.”
There was a rustle of bedsheets on the other end, then immediate alertness. “Daniel? Damn, old man. It’s been years. You sound like you’re standing in a graveyard. What do you need?”
“I need a background check, a financial audit, and every digital footprint you can dig up on a man named Mark Vance, executive director at Apex Financial.”
Miller let out a low whistle. “Apex? That’s big-time corporate stuff. Those guys have lawyers crawling out of their ears. What did he do?”
“He put my daughter in the trauma ward with six facial fractures,” I said. My voice didn't shake. It was dead steady. “And he told the hospital she fell down the stairs.”
The line went silent for three seconds. When Miller spoke again, all the sleepiness was gone from his voice. It was replaced by the cold, professional sharpness of an operator.
“Send me his full name, date of birth, and any addresses you have. Give me twelve hours. If he’s hiding bodies, offshore accounts, or a history of violence, I’ll find it.”
“Look into what happened three months ago, too,” I added. “That’s our starting point.”
“Three months ago? Got it. I’m on it, Daniel. Hang in there.”
I hung up and slipped the phone back into my jacket.
As dawn broke, filtering gray light through the hospital blinds, Lily’s eyelids fluttered open. Her dark eyes, bloodshot and filled with terror, locked onto mine. She tried to sit up, a sharp cry muffled by the wires.
“Shh, sweetheart, I’m here,” I murmured, leaning over her and gently pressing my hand against her shoulder. “Don’t try to speak. You’re safe. I’m right here.”
Lily stared at me, tears spilling over her lower lashes and tracking down her bruised cheeks. She raised her right hand—the one not hooked up to an IV—and weakly grabbed my sleeve. Her fingers traced frantic patterns against the fabric, spelling out letters in the air the way we used to do when playing word games as a little girl.
H-E... M-A-D-E... M-E...
May you like
She stopped, choking on a sob, her chest heaving as panic threatened to overwhelm her.
“I know, Lily,” I whispered, leaning down so my forehead rested gently against her uninjured hand. “I know he did it. And I promise you, by the time this is over, he is going to pay for every single tear.”
