Chapter 6 - The Woman Called LindaThe dead woman was not Linda Turner.
That argument lasted less than thirty seconds.
“You found a schedule with my name on it.”
“Exactly why you're staying here.”
“My daughter just called me.”
“And someone may be using her to lure you downstairs.”
“Then let them.”
Bell stepped closer.
“No.”
Wade's jaw flexed.
“Detective—”
“If you walk into an ambush and get yourself killed, who does Noah have?”
That ended it.
Wade looked through the NICU glass.
Noah slept beneath a warming blanket.
The anger drained from Wade's face.
Bell lowered his voice.
“Whoever wrote that note knows you. They know you'll charge toward danger. Stop giving them what they expect.”
At 9:52, officers moved into position throughout the garage.
Plainclothes detectives watched stairwells.
Uniformed officers blocked lower exits.
Hospital security monitored cameras.
Wade remained beside Noah.
I stayed too.
At 9:59, nothing happened.
At 10:00, the garage looked empty.
10:02.
10:04.
Then Bell's radio cracked.
“Movement, level five.”
Everyone froze.
A dark SUV entered through the employee ramp.
Its plates were obscured with mud.
The driver wore a baseball cap.
The SUV stopped in a blind section between cameras.
A man stepped out.
Not Darren.
He placed something beside a concrete pillar.
Then returned to the vehicle.
Police moved.
The SUV accelerated.
It struck a barrier and nearly clipped an officer before being boxed in at the exit.
The driver was arrested.
His name was Calvin Brooks.
Forty-one.
Two prior convictions for burglary.
No obvious connection to Emily.
Beside the pillar, police found a duffel bag.
Inside were thirty thousand dollars in cash—
and Wade's motorcycle jacket.
His leather vest.
The one he had been forced to leave in a visitor locker before entering the NICU.
“How did they get that?” Wade demanded.
Security checked.
The locker had been opened using an administrator override code.
Someone inside the hospital had helped.
But the bag contained something worse.
A handgun.
Unregistered.
Wrapped inside Wade's vest.
Bell stared at it.
“They were setting me up.”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“We don't know yet.”
But Wade did.
“If I showed up, there'd be cameras catching me entering the garage. My vest. My prints probably all over it.”
Bell nodded slowly.
“If someone died down there—”
“It would look like me.”
The plan had been crude but dangerous.
Turn Wade into the violent biker everyone expected him to be.
Give the police a familiar story.
Angry estranged father.
Threatened Darren years earlier.
Criminal record.
Gun.
Dead body.
Case closed.
Except Wade had stayed upstairs holding Noah.
At 10:26, Calvin Brooks began talking.
Not because he suddenly developed a conscience.
Because Bell told him attempted murder conspiracy carried more years than obstruction.
Calvin insisted he had only been hired to deliver the bag.
“By who?”
He gave them a name.
Linda Turner.
Wade closed his eyes.
The confirmation hurt worse than suspicion.
Bell asked Calvin about Emily.
He claimed not to know where she was.
Darren?
He had met Darren twice.
The second time, two nights earlier, Darren was injured.
“How?”
“Gunshot.”
Wade's head snapped up.
“Who shot him?”
Calvin shrugged.
“Didn't ask.”
“Where was he?”
“Some cabin.”
“Where?”
“I don't know exact address.”
Bell pushed.
Calvin remembered a lake.
A rusted water tower.
A blue mailbox shaped like a fish.
Not much.
But enough to start narrowing a search.
Meanwhile, hospital IT traced the override code used to access Wade's locker.
It belonged to a nursing supervisor named Patricia Ames.
Patricia had worked at Pine Valley Children's for nine years.
Respected.
No disciplinary history.
When questioned, she denied opening anything.
Then security footage showed her badge being used while she was physically on another floor.
Her badge had been cloned.
Someone had copied hospital credentials.
Bell requested access logs.
At 11:10, another alert surfaced.
Emily's chart had been accessed repeatedly after her discharge.
Not by Patricia.
By someone using the login of a retired records clerk whose account should have been disabled months ago.
The access originated from a terminal on the maternity floor.
Near the room where Emily had hidden her letter.
Someone had been searching for it.
Wade looked toward Rachel.
“She was telling the truth.”
Rachel nodded.
“And somebody knew she left something behind.”
At midnight, Bell received location data from Emily's call.
The signal bounced from two towers, giving them a search radius of roughly eight miles.
Rural terrain.
Wooded.
Several lakes.
Including Lake Harrow.
Calvin's description of the water tower matched a structure outside Harrow Township.
Police mobilized.
Wade stood.
“No.”
Bell didn't even look at him.
“I didn't say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was about to ask.”
“No.”
Wade glared.
Bell pointed toward Noah.
“Your job is here.”
Wade looked down at the sleeping newborn.
For the first time, he seemed to understand that staying could be an act of courage too.
At 1:15 a.m., Noah's oxygen saturation dropped.
The monitor alarmed.
Every trace of the criminal investigation vanished from my mind.
I moved immediately.
Noah's breathing became shallow.
His chest pulled inward with each breath.
Premature babies can destabilize quickly.
Wade stood helplessly beside the isolette while we worked.
“What’s happening?”
“Give us room.”
“Is he—”
“Wade.”
He backed away.
We increased respiratory support.
Checked temperature.
Ordered bloodwork.
Noah's heart rate climbed.
Wade pressed both hands against his head.
Twenty minutes earlier he had been arguing about police tactics.
Now he was whispering the same sentence over and over.
“Come on, little man.”
The episode stabilized.
Not completely.
But enough.
The physician suspected fatigue and possible infection.
Blood cultures were drawn.
Antibiotics started as precaution.
Wade's face crumpled when we explained.
“He was doing better.”
“He still is,” I said. “This is something we watch closely.”
“You promise?”
Nurses learn not to promise outcomes.
So I gave him the truth.
“He's fighting.”
Wade nodded.
“So am I.”
At 2:08 a.m., police reached the first suspected cabin.
Empty.
Second.
Empty.
Third.
A vacation property near Lake Harrow.
Fresh tire tracks.
Lights off.
Front door locked.
Police announced themselves.
No response.
They forced entry.
Inside, they found blood.
A chair with duct tape around the arms.
Prescription bottles bearing Emily's name.
And a phone smashed beneath a boot.
But no Emily.
No Darren.
No Linda.
The back door stood open.
Tracks led toward the woods.
A K-9 unit followed.
At 3:21 a.m., Bell's radio crackled.
They had found someone.
A man.
Alive.
Barely.
Darren Cole.
He had collapsed beside a dry creek bed.
Gunshot wound to the abdomen.
Severe blood loss.
No Emily.
When paramedics loaded him onto a stretcher, he regained consciousness long enough to say one sentence.
“Linda lost her mind.”
Then he passed out.
Wade heard the update over speakerphone.
“So Darren isn't running this?”
Bell shook his head.
“Maybe he was. Maybe things changed.”
“Where's Emily?”
“We still don't know.”
“Ask him.”
“He's going into surgery.”
Wade cursed under his breath.
Noah stirred.
He immediately softened his voice.
“Sorry, kid.”
At 4:12, search dogs returned to the cabin.
One alerted near a patch of soil behind an old shed.
Officers began digging.
Wade didn't know this yet.
Bell had deliberately stepped away before taking the call.
I watched him through the glass.
His shoulders went rigid.
Then he looked toward Wade.
I knew immediately it was bad.
He returned slowly.
Wade stood.
“What?”
Bell hesitated.
“What did they find?”
“A body.”
Wade's face emptied.
“No.”
“We don't know who it is yet.”
“No.”
“Wade—”
“No.”
He backed away from Bell.
“No, you don't tell me that and then tell me you don't know.”
The monitor beside Noah beeped steadily.
Bell kept his voice calm.
“The remains appear to be female.”
Wade grabbed the back of the chair.
“Emily?”
“We need confirmation.”
“How old?”
“Adult.”
“How long?”
“Unknown.”
Wade sank into the chair.
He didn't cry.
He simply looked at Noah.
The tiny baby slept beneath the lights, unaware that his mother's fate might be buried behind a cabin ten miles away.
At 5:03, Bell received preliminary confirmation.
The body was not Emily.
Wade nearly collapsed with relief.
Then came the second fact.
The deceased woman was believed to have been dead for several months.
She was wearing a silver necklace.
Wade recognized it from the photograph.
Linda's necklace.
But Linda had been seen alive at the truck stop hours earlier.
If the body was Linda—
May you like
then the woman driving Darren's car had been pretending to be Wade's sister.
And suddenly every assumption in the case broke apart.
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