Chapter 6 - CAROLINE'S EMAIL
Grant wanted every door in Saint Arden opened.
The law wanted a warrant.
Daniel called Judge Reyes, an old family friend who disliked Malcolm enough to listen carefully.
While lawyers worked, Voss took Grant to a private room and checked his eyes again.
Without Hale's drops, the inflammation was already changing.
Grant could detect the window as a pale rectangle.
At 11:40 p.m., Daniel received access to North Light billing records.
The patient was listed as Emily Mason.
Female.
Age nine.
Admitted five years earlier after blast trauma.
Grant stopped breathing.
Emma would be nine.
The chart included no photograph.
Guardian: Malcolm Mercer.
Grant whispered, "Open the room."
The director refused until the court order arrived.
At 12:18, it did.
Room 314 was empty.
Bed stripped.
Closet cleared.
Someone had removed Emily less than two hours earlier.
Grant gripped the doorframe.
"They knew we were coming."
Daniel called the mansion.
Security chief Aaron Pike answered.
No one had seen Malcolm.
Then Hannah called Grant directly.
"I found something in Caroline's old sewing room."
Grant's chest tightened.
Nobody used that room.
Lucy had wandered inside chasing a toy car and found an old tablet wedged behind a cabinet.
Daniel remotely unlocked it using Caroline's archived credentials.
One unsent email remained in drafts.
TO: AMELIA VOSS.
Grant turned toward the doctor.
"You knew Caroline?"
Voss stared at the subject line.
I THINK VERNON IS LYING TO GRANT.
Her face went pale.
"I never got this."
The email had been written the morning of the explosion.
Caroline described finding altered eye-surgery research hidden inside Malcolm's foundation files.
She believed Hale was testing a compound off-book.
The final line read:
If anything happens to me, Emma cannot stay with Malcolm.
Grant felt the room tilt.
Then Daniel scrolled down.
There was an attachment.
May you like
A photograph of Caroline standing beside a man Grant recognized immediately.
Hannah's missing husband, Owen Reed.
