Chapter 2 - THE NAME HE SHOULD NOT HAVE KNOWNEmma continued cleaning the blood from Mason Reed’s side.
“You’re not curious?” Mason asked again.
“Of course I’m curious.”
“Then why aren’t you asking?”
Emma dropped another blood-soaked gauze pad into the tray.
“Because people usually tell you what happened when they’re ready. Cornering them just makes them better at lying.”
Mason watched her for several seconds.
“That your brother’s philosophy?”
Emma’s hand stopped.
It was barely noticeable.
A pause no longer than a heartbeat.
But Mason noticed everything.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“You said my brother.”
Mason looked away.
Dr. Priya Lawson glanced between them while adjusting the portable ultrasound machine.
“Mason, I need you to stay still.”
He ignored her.
Emma stepped back from the examination table.
“How do you know I had a brother?”
Mason’s expression changed.
Not enough for anyone else in the room to understand.
Enough for Emma.
She had seen that look countless times during Owen’s final year alive, when military officers came to the house and conversations stopped the moment she entered.
It was the look of a man deciding how much truth another person could survive.
“Callahan isn’t exactly a rare name,” Mason said.
“You didn’t say Callahan.”
Silence.
Emma’s pulse began climbing.
“You said my brother.”
Dr. Lawson straightened.
“Emma?”
Emma lifted one hand.
“Just a minute.”
She looked directly at Mason.
“What was his name?”
Mason’s jaw tightened.
Emma felt cold despite the warmth of the trauma room.
“What was my brother’s name?”
Dr. Lawson glanced toward the door, clearly considering whether to call security again.
Mason lowered his voice.
“Owen.”
Emma forgot how to breathe.
The monitor beside Mason continued its mechanical rhythm.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Owen.
No hesitation.
No guess.
No uncertainty.
The name crossed Mason’s lips like it had lived there for years.
Emma stepped backward until the supply cabinet touched her shoulder blades.
“How do you know Owen?”
Mason’s gray eyes closed.
“Emma—”
“No.”
Her voice sharpened.
“You don’t get to use my name now. You walked into my hospital bleeding, fought four security officers, and somehow knew my dead brother’s name. So tell me how.”
Dr. Lawson stared at Mason.
“You two know each other?”
“I’ve never seen him before tonight,” Emma said.
Mason looked at her.
“That doesn’t mean I’ve never seen you.”
Emma’s stomach dropped.
“What?”
Mason winced as Dr. Lawson’s ultrasound probe pressed against his ribs.
“Eight years ago, Owen kept a photograph inside his med pouch. You were seventeen. Graduation picture. Yellow dress.”
Emma remembered it instantly.
Her mother had forced her to wear the dress.
Owen had stolen the photograph from the refrigerator the night before he deployed.
He had laughed when Emma demanded it back.
Now her knees threatened to buckle.
“You served with him.”
Mason did not answer.
Emma moved closer.
“You served with Owen.”
“I knew him.”
“Knew him where?”
“Emma.”
“Where?”
Mason opened his eyes.
“Afghanistan.”
The room became impossibly small.
Emma had spent eight years hearing carefully worded phrases.
Training accident.
Vehicle fire.
Classified circumstances.
Immediate death.
No recoverable personal effects except a scorched identification tag and fragments of medical equipment.
The Navy had sent a folded flag.
A lieutenant commander Emma had never met had stood in their living room and told her mother Owen had died serving his country.
No body had come home.
There had been too much damage.
Emma had hated that phrase ever since.
Too much damage.
“How close were you?” she whispered.
Mason looked at the ceiling.
“Close enough.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“He saved my life.”
Emma’s eyes burned.
She turned away before Mason could see the reaction.
Dr. Lawson finally interrupted.
“Whatever this is, it can wait. He has free fluid near the spleen.”
Mason immediately looked at her.
“How much?”
“Enough that I’m ordering a CT and surgical consult.”
“No.”
“Mason—”
“No CT.”
Dr. Lawson stared at him.
“You may be bleeding internally.”
“I said no.”
Emma looked back.
“Why?”
Mason ignored her.
Dr. Lawson crossed her arms.
“If your spleen ruptures, you could die.”
“Then patch the external wound and discharge me.”
Emma almost laughed from disbelief.
“You can barely stand.”
“I’ve stood through worse.”
“Yes,” Emma said. “Apparently beside my brother.”
His eyes locked on hers.
That landed.
Emma stepped close enough that only Mason could hear her.
“If Owen saved your life, you owe him enough to stop acting stupid.”
For the first time since entering Harborview, Mason Reed looked wounded by something that had nothing to do with bullets, fractures, or blood.
“You sound like him.”
“Good.”
Mason looked away.
Dr. Lawson exhaled.
“CT scan. Now.”
After several seconds, Mason nodded once.
“No restraints.”
“No restraints,” Emma said.
Twenty minutes later, Emma walked beside Mason’s gurney toward radiology.
He had refused to lie flat, so they had raised the head of the bed.
Two security officers followed at a distance.
Mason noticed them.
“They’re not necessary.”
“They’re not for you.”
He glanced at Emma.
“Then who?”
Emma checked the IV tubing.
“Dr. Hale.”
A faint smile almost appeared.
“You embarrass him often?”
“I’ve worked here four months.”
“So that’s a yes.”
Emma tried not to smile.
She failed.
It lasted only a second.
Then the elevator doors opened.
Mason froze.
Emma noticed immediately.
His fingers curled against the sheet.
His eyes went to the ceiling camera.
Then the corners.
Then the mirrored wall.
“Mason.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
The security officers shifted behind them.
Emma lifted a hand without looking back.
“Give us space.”
The elevator doors began to close.
Mason suddenly reached forward and stopped them.
“I’ll take the stairs.”
“You’re bleeding internally.”
“I don’t like elevators.”
Emma studied him.
Not fear.
Memory.
Something had happened in a confined metal space.
Something terrible.
“Owen hated helicopters,” she said quietly.
Mason looked at her.
“He told you that?”
“He told everyone he loved them. He told me he just hated flying.”
“He didn’t hate flying.”
“What did he hate?”
“Being unable to leave.”
Emma understood.
Mason released the door.
He leaned back.
“Keep them open until the last second.”
Emma pressed the button.
She waited.
Then allowed them to close.
Mason’s breathing remained controlled the entire ride.
Barely.
When they reached radiology, a technician wheeled him inside.
Emma waited beyond the glass.
Her hands were trembling now.
She pulled out her phone.
There were three missed calls from her mother.
Unusual at three in the morning.
Emma pressed call.
Her mother answered on the first ring.
“Emma?”
“Mom?”
“You’re okay?”
“Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Silence.
“Mom?”
“I had a strange call.”
Emma’s chest tightened.
“What kind of call?”
“Nobody spoke.”
“When?”
“Twenty minutes ago.”
Emma looked through the glass at Mason.
The scanner rotated around his body.
“Did you recognize the number?”
“Blocked.”
Emma walked farther from the technicians.
“Mom, I need to ask you something.”
“All right.”
“Do you remember the name Mason Reed?”
Silence.
Not confusion.
Silence.
Emma gripped the phone.
“Mom?”
“I haven’t heard that name in years.”
Emma’s heart stopped.
“You know him.”
“Emma, where did you hear that name?”
“He’s here.”
Her mother inhaled sharply.
“Where?”
“At Harborview.”
Another silence.
Then her mother said something Emma had never heard from her in her entire life.
“Get away from him.”
Emma stared through the window.
“Why?”
“Emma, listen to me. Leave the hospital.”
“I’m working.”
“Leave.”
“Mom, what is going on?”
“You need to trust me.”
Emma lowered her voice.
“Mason knew Owen.”
Her mother began crying.
Emma closed her eyes.
“Mom?”
“I prayed this would stay buried.”
“What would?”
A sound came from the hallway behind Emma.
A shoe scraping against tile.
She turned.
No one.
“Mom, tell me what happened eight years ago.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because your brother made me promise.”
Emma felt as if the floor shifted under her.
“Owen made you promise what?”
Her mother was crying harder now.
“That if Mason Reed ever came looking for you, I was supposed to take you and run.”
The line went dead.
Emma stared at her phone.
“Mom?”
No connection.
She immediately called back.
Straight to voicemail.
Inside radiology, the scan ended.
Mason was being transferred back onto the gurney.
Emma moved toward him.
“What did my brother tell my mother?”
Mason looked at her face and knew.
“Who did you call?”
“My mom.”
His expression hardened.
“What did she say?”
“That Owen told her to run if you ever found us.”
Mason swore under his breath.
“So you want to explain that?”
“Not here.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Emma.”
“Eight years,” she snapped. “For eight years, my family has lived with nothing but fragments. We buried an empty coffin. We had a memorial without a body. My mother stopped celebrating Christmas because Owen’s last call came on Christmas morning. And now you walk in bleeding and suddenly everybody knows something except me.”
Mason looked beyond her.
His face changed instantly.
“Get down.”
Emma frowned.
“What?”
Mason launched himself off the gurney.
Pain ripped across his face, but he moved anyway.
He grabbed Emma and dragged her behind the radiology desk.
A deafening crack shattered the glass wall.
Emma screamed.
A second shot punched into the scanner room.
Technicians dropped to the floor.
Security shouted.
Mason covered Emma with his body.
Another bullet struck the wall exactly where Emma had been standing.
Not Mason.
Emma.
Mason looked at the bullet hole.
Then at her.
His face had gone pale for a reason that had nothing to do with blood loss.
“They know who you are.”
Emma’s throat tightened.
“Who?”
Mason pulled a small concealed pistol from beneath the waistband of his torn camouflage pants.
No one had found it.
He checked the magazine with practiced speed.
“The same people who killed Owen.”
Emma stared at him.
“You said Owen died in an accident.”
Mason met her eyes.
“No.”
Outside, alarms began screaming through Harborview Medical Center.
Mason chambered a round.
May you like
“Owen Callahan was murdered.”
And somewhere below them, the hospital lights went dark.
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