Adrien's POV
The sharp, trilling ring of the landline was a physical shock in the silent house. Adrien jolted, his hand flying to his hip again, grasping at empty air. The sound was archaic, a relic. Nobody called the landline except telemarketers and… emergencies. His eyes snapped from Harper's discarded sneaker to the old corded phone on the kitchen wall. Its bleating was an intrusion, a violation of the crime scene's awful quiet.
Move. Answer it. It's a thread. His mind, already compartmentalizing the horror, latched onto the practicality. He crossed the room in three strides and yanked the receiver from its cradle. "Hello?" His voice was sandpaper.
"Is this… the Moore residence?" A woman's voice, professionally calm but with a tremor underneath.
"Yes. This is Adrien Moore."
"Mr. Moore, this is Evergreen Falls General. You need to come to the hospital. Immediately." The same words, the same urgent tone from the cell phone, but now official, from the source.
The confirmation solidified the dread into a cold, heavy lump in his gut. They called the house. They couldn't reach Tessa. Or she didn't answer. "My daughter. Harper. Is she there?"
"Please, sir, just come to the hospital. Now." The line went dead with a finality that brooked no argument.
Now. Go. The order was absolute. He dropped the receiver, letting it dangle, swaying on its coil like a hanged man. He took one last, sweeping look at his living room, imprinting the details—the angle of the chair, the specific shards of the lamp, the exact position of the textbook. This was his baseline. The evidence. He would be back for it.
He ran for the truck. The festive town was a smear of color and noise as he sped through it, his mind a split screen. One side was tactical: Shortest route? Main Street is blocked. Alternate route: Oak to 4th, cut behind the school. Estimated time: 7 minutes. The other side was a chaotic, screaming void: What did they do to her? How bad is it? Why wouldn't they tell me?
His knuckles were white on the steering wheel, his fingers gripping so tight the leather creaked. The festive decorations were a garish mockery. A giant banner proclaiming "Our Heroes, Our Heart" flapped over the street. My heart is in a hospital, broken. What hero am I now? He swerved around a slow-moving sedan, earning a blaring horn. He didn't hear it.
The hospital loomed, its windows reflecting the gray sky. He abandoned the truck in a fire lane, not caring, and hit the ER doors at a dead run. The transition from cold air to overheated, antiseptic-smelling lobby was disorienting. A different woman was at the desk now. He skidded to a halt in front of her, his chest heaving.
"Harper Moore," he gasped, the words raw. "My daughter. Where is she?"
This woman was older, with glasses on a chain. She peered at him over them, her fingers poised over her keyboard. "Relation?"
"I'm her father. Adrien Moore. They called me. Where is she?"
She typed, slow and deliberate. Each clack of a key was an eternity. She scanned the screen, her expression unreadable. "ICU. Third floor. You'll need to check in at the nursing station there." She pointed a bony finger towards the elevators.
ICU. The letters burned in his brain. Intensive Care. Not the pediatric ward. Not a regular room. The place for the fragile, the broken, the ones clinging to the edge. The cold lump in his gut turned to lead.
The elevator was a slow-motion coffin. He stood rigid, watching the numbers light up: 1… 2… It stopped on two. The doors opened. An orderly pushed an empty wheelchair in. Adrien's every nerve screamed. Move. Get out. Take the stairs. But he was frozen, trapped in the polite, slow machinery of the normal world. The orderly smiled vaguely. Adrien stared straight ahead, seeing nothing.
Finally, the doors opened on three. The air was different here colder, with an undercurrent of sterilizing chemicals and something else… a sweet, cloying scent of fear and despair, poorly masked. The hallway was hushed. The nursing station was a fortress of quiet activity. A nurse with kind eyes looked up as he approached.
"I'm looking for my daughter. Harper Moore." His voice was quieter now, strained thin.
The nurse's face softened into that familiar mask of pity. "Room 312, sir. Down the hall on your left. Dr. Evans is with her."
He walked, his boots making no sound on the linoleum. The doors were mostly closed, numbers gleaming. 308. 310. 312.
He stopped outside the door. A window, blinds half-drawn, looked into the room. He could see the foot of a bed, a tangle of clear tubing, the glow of monitors. His hand rose to push the door, but it hovered. This was the threshold. On one side was the father who left. On the other side was the reality of what had happened in his absence. You walked into ambushes before. You can walk through this door. He took a breath that did nothing to fill his lungs, and pushed.
The room was dim, lit only by the ghostly light of the monitors. The hiss-thump of the ventilator was the first thing he registered, a mechanical usurpation of a fundamental life process. Then he saw the bed. And the small figure in it.
She was almost unrecognizable. Her face was a palette of bruises, swollen and distorted. One eye was sealed shut beneath a puffy, purple lid. A tube was taped to her mouth, another in her nose. Wires snaked from under the gown to beeping machines. Her arms, resting on the white sheets, were mottled with deep, angry marks.
Harper. The name was a silent scream inside his skull. His legs carried him to the bedside. He reached out, his large, scarred hand hovering over her small, bruised one. He was afraid to touch her, afraid she might break further. My girl. My bright, beautiful girl.
A man in a white coat cleared his throat softly from the corner. Adrien hadn't even seen him. "Mr. Moore? I'm Dr. Evans."
Adrien didn't turn. His eyes were fixed on Harper's face, tracing every injury, his mind automatically cataloging them. Contusion, left zygomatic arch. Laceration, upper lip. Periorbital hematoma, left eye. The clinical terms were a barrier against the howling pain.
"What happened to her?" The question came out flat, dead.
"We believe she took a very bad fall," Dr. Evans said, moving closer but keeping a respectful distance. "At home. Fainted, perhaps, and tumbled down a full flight of stairs. The trauma is significant a severe concussion, some internal bruising, three broken ribs. We've put her in a medically induced coma to allow her brain to rest and swell"
"Those aren't fall injuries." Adrien finally turned his head, his gaze locking onto the doctor's. "Those are impact injuries. From fists. From multiple angles."
Dr. Evans flinched, his eyes darting away to the safety of the heart monitor. "Blunt force trauma can be deceptive, Mr. Moore. The edges of stairs, a banister… it can look quite violent. The police have been informed. They've classified it as a tragic accident."
The police have been informed. The words hung in the air, thick with unspoken meaning. It wasn't reassurance. It was a statement of process. A box checked.
Before Adrien could respond, the door opened. A large man in a police uniform filled the doorway. Chief Miller. He had the weary, confident bearing of a man who owned every room he walked into.
"Adrien," Miller said, his voice a low rumble. Not 'Mr. Moore.' First names. Establishing dominance. "I need a word. Outside."
Adrien looked from the Chief's impassive face to Harper's broken one. The mission parameters shifted. The primary objective was here, unmoving. The secondary objective now stood in the doorway. He gave Harper's hand the gentlest possible touch, a promise, then turned and followed Miller into the hallway.
The Chief didn't go far. He stopped a few feet from the door, crossing his arms over his broad chest, creating a wall of authority. "I'm sorry about your girl. Truly. But you need to understand how this works."
"How what works?" Adrien asked, his voice dangerously calm.
"This investigation. It's closed. It was an accident. A damn shame, but an accident." Miller's eyes were like flint. "The doctor gave you the facts. The scene at your house was consistent with a fall."
"You saw my house?" Adrien's eyes narrowed. "When?"
"My officers did. As part of the welfare check when the ambulance was called." Miller waved a dismissive hand. "A knocked-over chair, a broken lamp. Kid faints, staggers, falls. It happens."
He's narrating. He's not investigating; he's reciting a script. Adrien took a half-step closer, invading the man's personal space. "Her phone was shattered on the floor. There was a struggle."
Miller's expression hardened. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial growl that smelled of stale coffee. "Listen. You're a military man. I respect that. But you're not in a warzone now. This is Evergreen Falls. We handle things with care here. For the sake of your family—for your wife, for what you have left you need to let this go. Grieve. Be with your daughter. Poking around, making wild accusations… it won't help her. It'll only cause more pain. For everyone. Do we understand each other?"
The threat was velvet-wrapped, but it was a threat all the same. Stand down. Or else.
Adrien stared into the Chief's cold, certain eyes. This man wasn't here to find truth. He was here to manage it. To bury it. He was part of the cover story.
"Perfectly," Adrien said, his voice devoid of emotion.
Miller gave a single, satisfied nod. "Good man." He turned and walked down the hall, his footsteps echoing with finality.
Adrien stood alone, the machines behind the door beeping their relentless rhythm. So the police are compromised. The doctor is lying or intimidated. The narrative is set. He felt the walls of the system closing in around Harper's bed, trying to smother the truth of what happened to her.
As he turned to go back into the room, movement caught his eye. A nurse had slipped out of a room further down the hall. She was younger, with sharp, intelligent eyes that weren't downcast. They were fixed on him. And they were filled with a terrified urgency. She glanced quickly toward the nursing station, then back at him. Slowly, deliberately, she raised a single finger to her lips.
Shhh.
Then her eyes darted to a door just behind her, marked 'Medical Supplies.' She gave a barely perceptible jerk of her head toward it, her expression screaming NOW, before she slipped back into her patient's room and was gone.
The authorities had given him their official story and a warning. Now, a stranger was offering him a secret. The path of obedience led to a lie. The path through the supply closet door might lead to the truth or into a trap. Every instinct told him to follow the thread.