Chapter 9 - Shadows in the Rearview
Back at Rachel’s apartment, the grandfather clock in the hallway struck 1:30 AM.
Melissa had fallen asleep on the armchair, exhausted from crying, wrapped in an old fleece blanket. Daniel stood by the kitchen counter, quietly brewing another pot of coffee, his back turned to the living room.
Rachel sat upright, Evan’s words from Melissa’s journal echoing through her head. She picked up Daniel’s phone from the counter to check the time—her own phone had run out of battery an hour ago.
As she tapped the screen awake, a notification banner popped up from an unsaved number.
*‘The detective found the bunker under the garage. Move the secondary stash from the clinic storage room before morning. The girl can’t know.’*
Rachel’s heart stopped.
She stared at the text message, the glowing letters burning into her retinas. Her breath caught in her throat. Slowly, her eyes shifted toward Daniel, who was calmly pouring hot water into the French press, humming a low, tuneless melody under his breath.
Daniel was an administrator in the billing and records department at St. Joseph Medical Center.
He was the one who had insisted they take her to St. Joseph tonight instead of the closer urgent care clinic down the street. He was the one who had handed the clean towel to her face at the party.
Rachel remembered the towel.
When Daniel had pressed it against her bleeding cheek, the pain had suddenly flared ten times worse, burning like fire. At the time, she had assumed it was the open air hitting the raw wound.
*What was on that towel?*
Her fingers trembling, Rachel silently navigated through Daniel’s recent messages. What she found turned her blood to ice. Dozens of encrypted exchanges between Daniel and an unknown contact, detailing the exact layout of Rachel’s grandfather’s legal documents, wire transfer routing numbers, and floor plans of the hospital’s secure pharmaceutical dispensary.
She looked up. Daniel had stopped humming.
He turned around slowly, holding two mugs of black coffee. His warm, supportive smile was gone. In its place was a blank, calculating stare that she had never seen before in the three years they had lived together.
He looked at his phone in her hands.
May you like
“You shouldn’t be checking my messages, Rachel,” he said, his voice dropping into a flat, emotionless register. “The doctor said you need complete rest.”
***
