PART 4 — THE NIGHT THE HOUSE OF LIES COLLAPSED
The hospital room disappeared into darkness.
For one terrifying second, nobody moved.
Then another scream ripped through the hallway.
“Rachel!” I grabbed blindly for her arm.
“I’m here.”
Detective Ellis immediately pulled out her phone and switched on the flashlight.
“Stay away from the door.”
Emergency lights flickered red along the ceiling, barely illuminating the room.
Rachel moved beside my bed.
“What happened to the power?”
“I don’t know.”
Ellis reached for her radio.
“Security, this is Detective Ellis. Status?”
Static.
Nothing else.
She tried again.
“Security, respond.”
A voice finally broke through.
“Partial outage on the fourth floor. Backup generator should—”
The transmission cut off.
Then we heard running footsteps in the hallway.
Not nurses.
Too heavy.
Too fast.
Ellis drew her weapon.
Rachel’s face went white.
“Tell me that’s normal.”
“It isn’t.”
Ellis moved toward the door.
I grabbed her sleeve.
“You’re on that list.”
She looked back at me.
“So are you.”
“And Rachel.”
“I know.”
Another crash sounded outside.
Then a man shouted.
“Get down!”
A gunshot exploded somewhere down the corridor.
Rachel dropped beside my bed.
I froze.
The sound seemed to travel straight through my ribs.
Detective Ellis stepped into the doorway, weapon raised.
“Police!”
Another shot.
Then silence.
A nurse began crying somewhere nearby.
Ellis shut the door and locked it.
“Bathroom. Now.”
Rachel stared at my immobilized leg.
“She can’t walk.”
“Then help me move the bed.”
They pushed my bed toward the bathroom wall just as something slammed against the hospital-room door.
Once.
Twice.
Rachel whispered, “Oh God.”
Ellis held her weapon toward the entrance.
“Who’s there?”
No answer.
A third impact.
The door shook.
Then everything stopped.
We waited.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Twenty.
My heart hammered so violently that I could hear it in my ears.
Then a voice came from the other side.
“Detective Ellis?”
Ellis didn’t lower her gun.
“Identify yourself.”
“Officer Grant. Hospital detail.”
She hesitated.
“What’s your badge number?”
He gave it.
Ellis checked something on her phone.
Then slowly unlocked the door.
A uniformed officer stood outside, breathing hard.
“There’s been an incident near the stairwell.”
“What kind?”
“One security guard assaulted. Suspect fled toward the service elevators.”
“Description?”
“Male. Baseball cap. Medical scrubs.”
Ellis’s expression hardened.
“Scrubs?”
“He was dressed like hospital staff.”
Rachel looked at me.
Someone hadn’t merely cut the power.
Someone had come prepared to blend in.
“Was anyone shot?” Ellis asked.
“Officer fired after suspect produced what appeared to be a firearm. We don’t know if he was hit.”
“Lock down the floor.”
“Already happening.”
Ellis turned to us.
“No one enters this room without my approval.”
The officer nodded.
Then he added something that made my stomach twist.
“Detective, there’s one more issue.”
“What?”
“Your evidence officer downstairs can’t be reached.”
Ellis went still.
“The basement search team?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“We don’t know.”
She immediately called another number.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Rachel whispered, “This isn’t random.”
“No.”
Ellis looked at me.
“Someone knows what we found.”
The words hung in the darkened room.
Someone knew.
Someone who wasn’t Luke.
Luke was already in custody.
Celina was being questioned.
Barron was cooperating with police.
So who was left?
The lights suddenly came back on.
The fluorescent brightness felt almost violent after the darkness.
We all blinked.
Ellis looked at the hospital clock.
The outage had lasted less than four minutes.
Four minutes.
Long enough to create panic.
Long enough to enter the floor.
Long enough to reach someone.
Or remove something.
Her phone rang.
She answered.
“Ellis.”
Her face changed.
“What was taken?”
Rachel and I stared at her.
“Which box?”
Silence.
Then Ellis closed her eyes.
“I’m coming.”
She hung up.
“What?” Rachel asked.
Ellis looked at us.
“The basement evidence scene was breached.”
My mouth went dry.
“The house?”
“Yes.”
“Someone broke into a house full of police?”
“They created a distraction outside. One person got into the rear section while officers responded.”
“What did they take?”
Ellis stared at me.
“The box containing the original Evelyn files.”
Rachel swore.
I felt cold all over.
“The confession?”
“Gone.”
“And the list?”
“The photograph exists. The original was taken.”
“So whoever did this knew exactly which box mattered.”
“Yes.”
Rachel crossed her arms.
“Luke is in custody. Celina is in custody. Barron is cooperating. Who else knows about Evelyn?”
Ellis didn’t answer immediately.
Then her phone buzzed.
She read a message.
Her expression darkened further.
“Barron is missing.”
I stared at her.
“What do you mean missing?”
“He was released earlier pending further investigation after giving his statement.”
“You released him?”
“He was not under arrest.”
“And now?”
“No one can locate him.”
Rachel looked at the dark hallway beyond the door.
“Could Barron have taken the evidence?”
Ellis shook her head.
“He was under observation when the house was searched.”
“But after?”
“He disappeared.”
My mind raced.
Barron knew about the storage unit.
Barron knew about Evelyn.
Barron knew Celina kept records.
Barron had given police enough information to tear open his own family’s secrets.
Why run now?
Unless he wasn’t running from the police.
Unless he was running from someone else.
A nurse entered with permission from the officer outside.
“We’re moving you.”
“Why?”
“Security wants all high-risk patients away from this wing.”
I almost laughed.
High-risk patient.
Yesterday I had been a woman with a broken leg.
Now I apparently required armed protection.
They transferred me to a secure room on another floor.
Rachel stayed beside me.
Detective Ellis left to coordinate the investigation but promised two officers would remain outside.
Two hours passed.
Then three.
At 6:40 that evening, Rachel received a call.
She stepped toward the window.
“Yes?”
Her expression slowly changed.
“When?”
She looked at me.
“Where?”
Then she whispered, “Are you sure?”
When she hung up, I already knew the news was bad.
“What happened?”
“They found Barron’s car.”
“Where?”
“Near East Mercer Bridge.”
My blood turned cold.
The same bridge.
The bridge Luke had marked for my supposed accident.
“Was Barron inside?”
“No.”
“Then where is he?”
“They don’t know.”
The car had been abandoned near a service road leading toward the river.
Driver’s door open.
Keys still inside.
Barron’s phone was on the seat.
His wallet remained in the center console.
Nothing had apparently been stolen.
There was blood on the steering wheel.
Not much.
But enough.
Detective Ellis returned twenty minutes later.
“We’re treating Barron as potentially endangered.”
“Do you think Luke arranged this?”
“Luke has been in custody.”
“He could have had help.”
“Yes.”
“Celina?”
“She’s also been secured.”
“Then who?”
Ellis pulled the chair beside me.
“That’s what we need to understand.”
Rachel leaned forward.
“What about Evelyn?”
Ellis nodded.
“We reopened everything we could find digitally.”
“And?”
“Sixteen years ago, Evelyn Bennett worked as a bookkeeper.”
“For whom?”
Ellis looked at me.
“A company owned by the Bennett family.”
I frowned.
“Luke told me his family never owned a business.”
“He lied.”
Of course he did.
“What kind?”
“Property management, originally. Then private lending.”
Rachel’s face tightened.
“Private lending?”
“Yes.”
Ellis placed a printed document on my tray.
Bennett Capital Holdings.
I had never heard the name.
Yet Luke’s signature appeared on several later filings.
“Evelyn handled the accounts,” Ellis continued. “Shortly before her death, she reportedly accused someone inside the company of stealing money from clients.”
“Barron?”
“Possibly.”
“Celina?”
“Possibly.”
“Luke was nineteen.”
“He may have known more than he admitted.”
Rachel studied the paper.
“What happened to the company?”
“It dissolved within months of Evelyn’s death.”
“And the money?”
“Much of it vanished.”
The offshore account suddenly made sense.
Maybe Luke hadn’t created the hidden system.
Maybe he had inherited money already soaked in fraud.
I looked at Ellis.
“How much disappeared?”
“Original estimates suggest nearly three million dollars.”
Rachel whistled softly.
“Sixteen years ago.”
“Yes.”
“That’s much more today.”
“Yes.”
I stared at the ceiling.
“So Evelyn discovered theft.”
“Apparently.”
“She said if something happened to her, don’t call it an accident.”
“Yes.”
“Then she died.”
“Yes.”
“And Barron collected her insurance.”
“Yes.”
“And sixteen years later Luke prepares the same type of accident for me.”
Ellis said nothing.
She didn’t need to.
The pattern was sitting between us.
Rachel whispered, “Someone taught him.”
That was the truth nobody wanted to say aloud.
Luke had copied something.
Bridge.
Rain.
Brake failure.
Insurance payout.
It wasn’t creativity.
It was repetition.
Then Detective Ellis placed another document in front of us.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Evelyn’s old personal bank statement.”
I scanned it.
Most transactions meant nothing.
Then one payment stood out.
$18,000.
To someone named Daniel Cross.
“Who’s Daniel Cross?”
“We didn’t know.”
“Did?”
Ellis nodded.
“We identified him this afternoon.”
“Who is he?”
“He was a mechanic.”
My stomach dropped.
Rachel looked up sharply.
“A mechanic?”
“He worked at an auto shop three miles from Evelyn’s home.”
The room became silent.
“What happened to him?”
“He disappeared two days after Evelyn’s death.”
I stopped breathing.
“Disappeared?”
“Never officially found.”
“Was he suspected?”
“At the time, no connection was made.”
“But Evelyn paid him eighteen thousand dollars.”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“We don’t know.”
Rachel leaned back.
“Maybe the payment wasn’t for sabotaging her car.”
Ellis looked at her.
“What are you thinking?”
“What if Evelyn discovered someone planned to kill her and paid Daniel to inspect or repair the car?”
That possibility twisted everything again.
Ellis nodded slowly.
“That’s being investigated.”
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
I stared at the screen.
Rachel immediately noticed.
“Don’t answer.”
The phone buzzed again.
A message appeared.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE PAST BURIED.
My throat tightened.
I showed Ellis.
She took the phone.
Another message appeared.
BARRON TRIED TO TALK.
LOOK WHAT HAPPENED.
Rachel went pale.
Then a photograph arrived.
Barron.
Alive.
Sitting in a chair.
Hands tied behind his back.
Blood running from his forehead.
A newspaper lay across his lap.
Today’s date visible.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
Ellis immediately called for tracing assistance.
Then another message.
ASK BARRON WHO REALLY KILLED EVELYN.
The three of us stared at it.
Then:
HE HAS BEEN LYING FOR SIXTEEN YEARS.
Rachel whispered, “They want us to question him.”
“No,” Ellis said. “They want to control what we believe.”
Another photo appeared.
This time closer.
Barron’s face.
His mouth was taped.
But something had been written on the wall behind him.
Three letters.
D.C.
Ellis froze.
“Daniel Cross?”
Rachel asked.
“Maybe.”
The final message arrived.
MIDNIGHT.
OLD BENNETT MILL.
COME WITH POLICE AND HE DIES.
Rachel looked at Ellis.
“You obviously aren’t going.”
Ellis didn’t answer.
“Detective.”
“No, we’re not walking into an obvious trap.”
I stared at Barron’s photograph.
He had failed me when I needed him.
He had watched while his wife and son abused me.
But he had also given us Unit 214.
Without him, we might never have discovered the plan for East Mercer Bridge.
“What is the old Bennett mill?”
Ellis typed the name into her system.
Then she stopped.
“What?”
She turned the screen.
Bennett Textile Mill.
Closed twenty-one years earlier.
Owned by the same holding company.
Rachel read the address.
“Outside town.”
“Yes.”
“Near the river?”
“Yes.”
“Near East Mercer?”
Ellis nodded.
I felt something shift inside me.
All roads led back to that bridge.
That night at 11:40, police surrounded the old mill from a distance.
Nobody intended to obey the kidnapper’s instructions.
Tactical officers moved through the surrounding woods.
A drone surveyed the roof.
Detective Ellis stayed in the command vehicle.
I stayed at the hospital under guard.
Rachel stayed with me.
At 12:03, Ellis called.
“We entered.”
“And?”
“No Barron yet.”
I squeezed the blanket.
“Anything else?”
“Signs someone was here recently.”
Then the call went quiet.
“Detective?”
I heard voices in the background.
“What happened?”
Ellis whispered, “They found the chair from the photograph.”
“Barron?”
“No.”
My stomach sank.
Then shouting erupted through the phone.
“Clear!”
“Room clear!”
“Detective?”
“I have to go.”
The call ended.
Twenty minutes passed.
Then thirty.
At 12:47, Ellis called again.
“We found a concealed basement.”
My pulse raced.
“Is Barron there?”
“No.”
“But we found records.”
“What kind?”
“Older than Luke’s.”
“How old?”
“Some are more than thirty years old.”
Rachel leaned closer to my phone.
“What does that mean?”
Ellis sounded shaken.
“It means this may have started before Luke was born.”
Of course.
Celina had said Luke wasn’t the one who started it.
But perhaps she hadn’t meant Barron either.
“What did you find?”
“Insurance documents. Loan papers. photographs. Death certificates.”
I closed my eyes.
“How many?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Another voice called Ellis’s name.
Then she said, “Clover, there’s something here with your maiden name.”
My eyes opened.
“What?”
“Your maiden name.”
“No.”
“Was your father named Thomas Hale?”
My blood ran cold.
“Yes.”
Rachel stared at me.
“My father died when I was nine.”
Ellis went silent.
“How?”
I suddenly knew why she was asking.
“Car accident.”
Rachel’s hand flew to her mouth.
“No.”
I could barely hear myself.
“It was raining.”
Ellis whispered, “Clover…”
“My father’s brakes failed.”
Silence.
The past broke open beneath me.
My father had been driving home from work.
His car left the road.
Everyone said it had been mechanical failure.
My mother never recovered emotionally.
She died years later believing it was a meaningless tragedy.
“What is his name doing there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me what you see.”
Ellis hesitated.
“His insurance policy.”
My throat tightened.
“He didn’t have any connection to the Bennetts.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
Then I remembered something.
Something so small I hadn’t thought about it for decades.
My father had worked for a property company.
I had been nine.
I never knew its real name.
We simply called it Dad’s office.
“Wait.”
Rachel looked at me.
“My father was an accountant.”
Ellis became very quiet.
“Clover.”
“What?”
“I’m looking at an employee file.”
My hand shook.
“Bennett Capital Holdings.”
The room tilted.
My father had worked for Luke’s family.
I had married into the family connected to my father’s death without ever knowing it.
Rachel whispered my name.
But I barely heard her.
“What else?”
Ellis turned pages.
Then suddenly stopped.
“Detective?”
No response.
“Tell me.”
“There’s a photograph.”
“Of my father?”
“Yes.”
“Who is with him?”
Ellis said nothing.
“Who?”
“Evelyn.”
My eyes filled with tears.
“They knew each other?”
“Apparently.”
Then Ellis read the writing beneath the photograph.
“T.H. + E.B. found discrepancy. Both becoming problem.”
I stopped breathing.
Both becoming problem.
My father died first.
Evelyn died years later.
Both had been accountants.
Both had apparently discovered something.
Rachel whispered, “This family has been silencing people for decades.”
Then a police officer shouted through Ellis’s phone.
“Detective! We found something!”
The line moved.
Footsteps.
Metal scraping.
Then Ellis gasped.
“What?” I demanded.
Nobody answered.
“Detective!”
Finally, Ellis spoke.
“They found Barron.”
My entire body tightened.
“Alive?”
A long pause.
“Yes.”
I exhaled.
“Thank God.”
“But Clover…”
“What?”
“He isn’t alone.”
My heart stopped.
“Who’s with him?”
Ellis sounded stunned.
“A man.”
“Who?”
“We ran his identification.”
Silence.
Then came the name.
“Daniel Cross.”
The missing mechanic.
The man who disappeared after Evelyn’s death sixteen years earlier.
Alive.
Standing beside Barron.
Rachel stared at me.
“Then who sent the kidnapping photos?”
Before I could answer, Ellis continued.
“Barron wasn’t kidnapped.”
“What?”
“He came here voluntarily.”
Nothing made sense.
“Then why was he tied to the chair?”
“He says the photograph was staged.”
“Why?”
“He says they needed us to come here.”
My pulse pounded.
“They?”
“Barron and Daniel.”
“Why not just call the police?”
Ellis went quiet.
Then I heard a male voice in the background.
Older.
Rough.
Urgent.
“Because the police were compromised.”
Rachel and I froze.
Detective Ellis said, “That’s Daniel Cross.”
Daniel’s voice came again.
“Ask the detective who supervised Evelyn’s accident investigation.”
Ellis stopped breathing.
Someone handed her something.
Pages rustled.
Then she whispered a name.
“Captain Robert Hayes.”
Rachel frowned.
“Who is that?”
Ellis didn’t respond.
“Detective?”
Her voice changed.
“He’s my commanding officer.”
The room went cold.
The same man coordinating portions of the current investigation.
The same man who had access to evidence locations.
The same man who knew about the hospital security arrangements.
The same man who could have known exactly which basement box to steal.
My phone suddenly displayed another unknown call.
Before Rachel could stop me, I answered.
“Hello?”
A man spoke.
Calm.
Almost amused.
“Clover.”
I recognized the voice.
I had heard it earlier that week when Detective Ellis introduced him briefly during a hospital interview.
Captain Hayes.
“You’ve caused quite a mess.”
Rachel’s eyes widened.
I put the call on speaker.
Hayes continued.
“Your father caused one too.”
Every hair on my body stood up.
“You knew my father.”
“I knew everyone who thought they were clever enough to look inside accounts that didn’t belong to them.”
Rachel began recording the call on her phone.
I forced my voice to remain steady.
“You killed him.”
Hayes laughed quietly.
“You should be careful with accusations.”
“You killed Evelyn too.”
“That one wasn’t mine.”
My eyes narrowed.
“Then whose was it?”
Silence.
Then:
“Ask Barron.”
The line disconnected.
I stared at the phone.
Detective Ellis was still connected on Rachel’s device.
She had heard everything.
“Hayes,” Ellis whispered.
Then alarms suddenly sounded from her end.
Someone shouted.
“MOVE! MOVE!”
Gunfire exploded through the call.
Rachel screamed.
“Detective!”
The line filled with chaos.
Then Daniel Cross shouted:
“HE’S HERE!”
More gunfire.
The connection died.
For the next seven minutes, we heard nothing.
Seven minutes can be a lifetime when you don’t know who is still alive.
Then Detective Ellis called.
Her breathing was ragged.
“I’m okay.”
I nearly cried.
“What happened?”
“Hayes sent people.”
“Is Barron alive?”
“Yes.”
“Daniel?”
“Wounded, but alive.”
“Did you catch them?”
“One suspect. Others fled.”
Rachel asked the question hanging over everything.
“Where is Hayes?”
“We don’t know.”
That answer terrified me more than anything.
Captain Hayes was still out there.
He knew where I was.
He knew Rachel was with me.
And he had spent decades helping bury whatever Bennett Capital had been hiding.
At 2:13 in the morning, Detective Ellis sent us a scanned page Daniel Cross had kept hidden for sixteen years.
It was Evelyn’s letter.
Not the missing confession.
Something else.
The first line read:
If anything happens to me, Barron did not act alone.
The second:
Robert Hayes protects them.
The third:
Celina keeps the records.
Then:
Luke has started watching.
He is only nineteen, but I’m afraid he wants to become worse than all of them.
I kept reading until the final paragraph.
Then my heart stopped.
Because Evelyn had written about my father.
Thomas Hale tried to expose the stolen accounts years ago. They made his death look like an accident. His daughter Clover was only nine. If she ever finds this, tell her her father did not die because he made a mistake.
Tears blurred the words.
My father hadn’t been careless.
He hadn’t failed to maintain his car.
He had tried to expose them.
And they had killed him for it.
Rachel wrapped an arm around me as I cried for the man I had lost twenty-five years earlier.
But there was one final sentence.
One that turned my grief into something colder.
Something stronger.
Evelyn wrote:
The evidence Thomas collected was never found. I believe he hid it before he died. Celina has spent years looking for it.
I wiped my tears.
“My father hid evidence.”
Rachel stared at me.
“Do you know where?”
“No.”
Then a memory surfaced.
A tiny wooden music box.
My father had given it to me the morning before he died.
I still had it.
Not at Luke’s house.
At my mother’s old house, which had remained locked since her death.
Inside the music box was a tiny brass key I had never been able to identify.
My father used to joke:
Someday, Clover, that key will open something important.
I had always thought it was a sentimental game.
Now I knew it wasn’t.
Rachel saw my expression.
“What?”
“I know where the key is.”
“To what?”
“I don’t know.”
We contacted Detective Ellis.
By dawn, officers were moving toward my mother’s old house.
But they arrived too late.
The front door was open.
Someone had already been inside.
Drawers overturned.
Closets emptied.
Furniture slashed.
The entire house had been searched.
Yet the music box remained untouched beneath a loose floorboard in my childhood bedroom.
The brass key was still inside.
And beneath it was something I had never noticed before.
A tiny folded piece of paper.
One address.
No name.
No explanation.
Rachel searched it.
It belonged to an old bank building downtown.
Detective Ellis stared at the key.
“Safe-deposit box.”
At 10:20 that morning, with a warrant and bank officials present, investigators opened Box 317.
Inside were three things.
A flash drive.
A handwritten ledger.
And an envelope addressed:
TO MY DAUGHTER, CLOVER.
My hands shook as Detective Ellis brought the sealed letter to the hospital.
It was my father’s handwriting.
I recognized it immediately.
I had not seen those letters since childhood.
I opened the envelope.
My dearest Clover,
If you are reading this, then I failed to come home.
I covered my mouth.
Rachel squeezed my shoulder.
I continued.
There are people at Bennett Capital who have stolen money from families for years. Evelyn is helping me collect proof. I believe Celina Bennett knows everything, and I believe Barron is too frightened to stop her.
I froze.
Barron too frightened to stop her.
Not mastermind.
Not innocent.
A coward trapped inside something bigger.
Then:
But there is another person no one suspects.
Someone who has protected the entire operation from law enforcement.
I already knew.
Robert Hayes.
But the next sentence destroyed that assumption.
His name is not Robert Hayes.
My heart stopped.
I looked at Detective Ellis.
“What?”
She leaned closer.
I read the next line.
Hayes is only the police contact. The person directing everything is inside our own company, and if I write the name here, this letter may get Clover killed.
My hands started shaking violently.
Instead, I placed the name on the flash drive behind a password only my daughter might someday understand.
Rachel whispered, “What password?”
The next line:
Clover, remember what I told you every night before bed.
I closed my eyes.
I hadn’t thought about it in decades.
My father would tuck me in.
Kiss my forehead.
Then say:
“Three stars above you, one heart beside you, and home will always find you.”
Three stars.
One heart.
Home.
I told Ellis.
The digital team tried variations.
Then the flash drive unlocked.
Hundreds of files appeared.
Bank transfers.
Names.
Property records.
Police payments.
Insurance documents.
Photographs.
And one video.
Recorded by my father two days before he died.
Detective Ellis played it.
My father appeared on-screen.
Younger than I remembered him.
Nervous.
Terrified.
“If this recording is being watched, then Bennett Capital’s internal operation needs to be exposed immediately.”
He described the fraud.
The fake loans.
The stolen identities.
The insurance scams.
The bribed officials.
Then he leaned closer to the camera.
“The person directing the operation is—”
The video froze.
For one second, I thought the file was damaged.
Then it resumed.
My father spoke a name.
Rachel gasped.
Detective Ellis stood so suddenly her chair fell backward.
I stared at the screen.
Because the name wasn’t Celina.
It wasn’t Barron.
It wasn’t Hayes.
And it wasn’t Luke.
It was someone I knew.
Someone who had been near me since the investigation began.
Someone who knew every move we made.
Someone who had access to my hospital room.
My father said:
“The person controlling Bennett Capital is Dr. Samuel Monroe.”
Rachel went completely still.
Her face turned white.
“No.”
I slowly looked at her.
Monroe.
Rachel Monroe.
My lawyer.
My best friend.
Rachel stared at the screen.
Then whispered:
“That’s my father.”
At that exact moment, the door to my hospital room opened.
An elderly man in an expensive dark suit stepped inside.
Silver hair.
Calm smile.
A bouquet of white lilies in one hand.
Rachel’s face collapsed.
“Dad?”
Dr. Samuel Monroe looked at his daughter.
Then at Detective Ellis.
Then at me.
He quietly locked the hospital-room door behind him.
And smiled.
“Clover,” he said, “your father should have destroyed that key.”…………
TO BE CONTINUED IN LAST PART...
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