CHAPTER 4 – THE MAN IN THE GRAY SUIT
CHAPTER 4 – THE MAN IN THE GRAY SUIT
I didn't sleep.
Every time Emily shifted beneath her blanket, I opened my eyes.
Every footstep outside the hospital room made my heart race.
By sunrise, I had memorized the faces of every nurse on the floor.
One face didn't belong.
He appeared just after seven.
Gray suit.
Blue tie.
No visitor badge.
He walked slowly past Emily's room, glanced through the glass, and kept going.
Five minutes later, he walked past again.
The third time, I stepped into the hallway.
"Can I help you?"
He smiled politely.
"I'm looking for Room 612."
"There is no Room 612 on this floor."
His smile disappeared for half a second.
Then he nodded.
"My mistake."
He turned and walked toward the elevator.
I immediately found Detective Monroe's number.
"I think someone is watching my daughter."
"What happened?"
I described the man.
She didn't interrupt once.
When I finished, she asked only one question.
"Did he touch the door?"
"No."
"Stay where you are."
Twenty minutes later, hospital security reviewed surveillance footage.
The detective called me into the security office.
"Watch this."
The gray-suited man entered the hospital at 6:41 a.m.
He never checked in.
Never asked for directions.
Never visited another patient.
He walked directly to Emily's room.
Stayed exactly fourteen minutes.
Then left.
"Can you zoom in?"
The technician enlarged the image.
Rachel leaned forward.
"I know him."
"You do?"
She nodded.
"His name is Victor Sloan."
"Who is he?"
The detective's jaw tightened.
"He used to work private security."
"For whom?"
She looked at me.
"For your father's law firm."
A chill spread through my body.
"He wasn't visiting."
"No."
Rachel answered quietly.
"He was confirming whether your daughter survived."
Before I could respond, another officer hurried into the room carrying a file.
"You need to see this."
He handed it to Rachel.
Her expression changed instantly.
"What is it?"
She looked up slowly.
"Your father's attorney filed an emergency petition this morning."
My stomach dropped.
"For what?"
Rachel turned the papers toward me.
The title was written in bold letters.
PETITION FOR EMERGENCY GRANDPARENT CUSTODY.
I stared at the page in disbelief.
"They're claiming you're mentally unstable after yesterday's incident."
I felt physically sick.
"They're trying to take Emily."
Rachel nodded.
"And they're asking the court to place her temporarily with..."
She stopped reading.
"With whom?"
She looked me straight in the eye.
"Vanessa Harper."
The very woman who had tried to drown my daughter.
At that moment, my phone vibrated again.
A new message from Evelyn.
Don't panic. Check today's financial news. Harper Development's stock just dropped 18% because someone anonymously leaked documents about accounting fraud.
I opened the article.
My father's smiling face filled the screen.
For the first time in decades...
The headline beneath his picture wasn't praising him.
It read:
"Federal Investigators Confirm Preliminary Review of Harper Development Financial Records."
I whispered one sentence to myself.
"The empire has started to fall."
But deep down, I knew something else.
May you like
Cornered people were the most dangerous people of all.
And my family had just realized they were running out of places to hide.
