She didn’t need to check the contact. She already knew.
Graham Cullen.
One new message:Waverly Junction. Sunrise Diner. One hour.
Her chest tightened. She slipped the phone under the pillow and turned to look at Alex. He was still asleep, one arm draped across her side, his breath even.
She hated this. Hated sneaking out like she had something to hide. He would be furious if he knew. Not because he didn’t trust her, but because he did, and he wanted to keep her safe. This was a betrayal of his trust.
But she also knew him well enough to know, if she told him she was meeting Graham alone, he wouldn’t let her go. And this… this she had to do herself.
Carefully, she eased out from under his arm and stood barefoot on the hardwood. At the foot of the bed, Bailey lifted his head. Charlotte raised a hand—stay. The dog settled back into his spot, watching her with dark, alert eyes. The dog training when he was a puppy paid off.
She gathered her jeans, sweater, boots, and purse in silence, slipping from the room with ease.
Downstairs, voices drifted from the kitchen—Tristan and Sophie. They’d just gotten back from the Institute. Charlotte paused on the stairs, keeping to the shadows.
“I think it’s psychological,” Tristan was saying. “We’ll wait for the tox screen, and our psychiatrist will see her once she’s medically stable.”
Sophie replied, her voice lower, “I’m surer now. Especially after what happened at Mom’s place. Two catatonic patients in one day? This is not a coincidence.”
Charlotte froze. Her stomach turned. She didn’t want to think about Henry Byron, who had been found on her porch, silent, unreachable, now dead. Whoever left the photos in the storage unit wanted her shaken. They were succeeding.
She slipped through the foyer, careful not to let her boots click against the floor. At the door, she punched in the alarm code. A code she learned when Ruth returned home after she was in hiding. She hesitated for half a second watching the panel turn green, hand on the knob.
Then she exhaled, turned it, and stepped into the predawn dark.
Her car sat parked at the curb, windshield streaked with frost. She climbed in, started the engine, and pulled away from the house as quietly as she could.
Charlotte didn’t look back. She couldn’t. She was gone.
Rook slept for six hours.
It was the kind of sleep that didn’t come easy anymore—half-wired, shallow, but enough to reset his pulse and slow the noise in his head. The safe house remained silent, undisturbed. No movement outside. No alerts on the perimeter grid.
He rolled his neck, cracked his knuckles, and slid back into the chair by the terminal. Fingers moved fast—routine check-in,encrypted sweep across the flagged medical transfer lines. His private markers scanned hospital records, EMS dispatches, and any restricted intake logs connected to the Blackwell Institute and any other system. EPIC, Cerner and AthenaHealth, the three largest electronic medical records providers, were no match for his skills. He was expecting one name. Henry Byron. Instead, the system flagged something else.
Rook froze.
Female. No ID. Found wandering Route 83, near the freight crossing south of Waverly Junction. Partially clothed. Disoriented. Nonverbal. Transferred to Blackwell under emergency psychiatric protocol. Admitted Name: Jane Doe 103 Real ID: Unknown
But Rook didn’t need the name. He knew the pattern. The silence. The location. The absence of everything else.
His cursor hovered over the case file, the photo taken during intake grainy but sharp enough. It wasn’t Byron. It was her. Mara.
He leaned back in the chair, staring at the screen like it had just spoken out loud. “God,” he whispered. “She made it.”
The timing made no sense. Byron had been placed. The bait had been left. Charlotte should’ve been the one receiving the shock. But now Mara was back, and no one had planned that. Not even him.
He checked Waverly County Hospital. A gasp fell from his lips.Byron, Henry—Deceased. Transferred to the Waverly County Medical Examiner.He didn’t save him in time.
He flashed back to Mara. He began typing rapidly, digging deeper. Time of intake. Field med notes. EEG readings. Bloodwork. Tristan Blackwell’s preliminary evaluations were restricted but not unreachable. Mara showed minimal signs of neural stabilization—Reactivity. Resistance to sedation. That wasn’t just survival. It was memory.
Rook stared at the blinking cursor. For the first time in weeks, he smiled. Mara was alive.
Alex stretchedout his hand and met cool sheets. Empty. His eyes flew open. He sat up fast, suddenly wide awake.
Bailey jumped on the bed, tail thumping, tongue already going for a full-face bath.
