Chapter 8 - The Second Man
The answer came from Nia.
Not the police.
Not the security cameras.
My daughter.
She stared at the photo on my phone and whispered, “I know that room.”
Detective Ortiz turned. “Where?”
Nia swallowed.
“Caleb’s storage place.”
I stared at her. “What storage place?”
“He took me there once.”
“When?”
“Summer.”
“Why?”
“He said we were getting camping stuff.”
I had never heard of a storage unit.
Ortiz showed Nia the photo again.
“Are you sure?”
“The wall behind her. It’s green. And there’s a red toolbox on the floor. He had the same one.”
Ortiz started making calls.
Within minutes, officers were heading to a storage facility twelve miles away.
Caleb, meanwhile, was still in the hospital under observation by security.
Which meant one of two things.
Either he had arranged this before he arrived.
Or someone else was helping him.
At 2:11 a.m., Ortiz got the call.
They found Marissa.
Alive.
No Caleb.
No second suspect.
But there was something else in the unit.
Boxes.
Documents.
Medical supplies.
And a laptop.
Ortiz didn’t tell me everything right away. She didn’t have to.
I saw it in her face.
“Was there poison?”
“Yes.”
My knees weakened.
“Enough to match what was in Nia?”
“We’ll need lab testing.”
Nia closed her eyes.
Dr. Hale adjusted her IV.
I thought that was the worst thing I could hear.
Then Ortiz said, “We also found printed copies of your daughter’s trust statements.”
I sat down.
“How did he get those?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“He doesn’t have access.”
“Somebody did.”
A hospital administrator arrived with another security officer.
He whispered to Ortiz.
She looked at me.
“What now?”
Ortiz held up a hand.
“Caleb is gone.”
I stood.
“What do you mean gone?”
“He asked to use the restroom. The guard waited outside. There’s a staff exit inside the adjoining corridor.”
“That door is alarmed.”
“It was disabled.”
My eyes moved toward the nurse’s station.
Cameras.
Badge access.
Hospital staff.
I remembered the nurse who had been in our room at the beginning.
Keisha.
But she was standing ten feet away, pale and shocked.
Ortiz followed my eyes.
“No. She was with us.”
“Then who?”
The administrator swallowed.
“Someone used a physician-level access badge.”
Dr. Hale looked at him.
“Whose badge?”
The administrator hesitated.
Then he said, “Yours.”
Dr. Hale checked his coat.
His badge was gone.
“I had it an hour ago.”
The administrator looked miserable. “The system shows your credential opened the staff exit at 2:06.”
“I didn’t leave this floor.”
“We know. Camera confirms that.”
Ortiz asked, “Who had access to him?”
Nurses. Techs. Patients. Families.
Too many people.
Dr. Hale looked at me. “Caleb shook my hand when he first arrived.”
I remembered it.
A polite gesture in the hall.
Caleb smiling.
Caleb leaning close.
He could have lifted the badge then.
Security locked down the entrances, but it was too late.
Caleb was gone.
At 2:24, my phone rang again.
Unknown number.
Ortiz motioned for me to answer on speaker.
I did.
Silence.
Then Caleb’s voice.
“Denise.”
My body turned to ice.
“Where are you?”
“You need to listen.”
“No. You need to turn yourself in.”
“I didn’t poison Nia.”
Nia’s eyes opened.
I looked at Ortiz.
She wrote on her pad: KEEP HIM TALKING.
“Then why did you run?”
“Because somebody is setting me up.”
I almost laughed.
“Your sister was tied up in your storage unit.”
“I know.”
“How?”
A pause.
“Because she called me before someone took her.”
Ortiz wrote: WHO?
I asked, “Who took her?”
Caleb breathed into the phone.
“She wouldn’t say.”
“Then come back.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because the person who did this has access to your house, my storage unit, the hospital, and Nia’s financial records.”
My skin prickled.
He continued.
“You think I forged that beneficiary form?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t.”
“You gave her the pills.”
“I gave her iron.”
“They weren’t iron.”
Another pause.
Then his voice cracked.
“Denise, I swear to God, I didn’t know.”
I wanted to hate him.
I did hate him.
But there was something in his voice I couldn’t place.
Fear.
Not for himself.
For us.
Ortiz gestured for me to ask where he was.
Before I could, Caleb said, “Check Andre’s old case.”
I stopped breathing.
“What?”
“Nia’s father.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“He was killed by a drunk driver.”
“That’s what you were told.”
The line went dead.
For several seconds nobody moved.
May you like
Then Nia whispered the one thing I was not ready to hear.
“Mom… Dad’s crash wasn’t an accident?”
