Chapter 5
The clinic outside Joliet looked too clean.
That was my first warning.
Places hiding ugly things often smell like lemon cleaner.
Rose Carter was in room twelve.
She sat by the window wearing a blue sweater, folding and unfolding a tissue in her lap.
Emma stopped in the doorway.
“Mom?”
Rose looked up.
Her face brightened.
Not with memory.
With feeling.
“Emily?”
Emma broke.
She crossed the room and knelt at her mother’s feet.
“It’s Emma, Mom.”
Rose touched her hair.
“My baby.”
That was enough.
Memory did not need perfect names to be love.
I stayed at the doorway with Luke.
A nurse approached, nervous.
“You can’t be here.”
Luke showed her a badge that was not a badge but worked like one because confidence has its own uniform.
“We’re here.”
The clinic director arrived five minutes later.
A man named Dr. Halden.
He was sweating before he reached us.
“Mr. Moretti, this is unexpected.”
“You know me.”
“Everyone knows you.”
“Good. Then don’t waste my time. Who brought Rose Carter here?”
He adjusted his glasses.
“Her legal guardian authorized transfer.”
“Alan Pierce had no authority.”
“I have paperwork.”
Luke took the folder from him.
He skimmed it.
“Forged.”
Halden swallowed.
“That is a serious accusation.”
I rolled closer.
“No. Serious is what happens after I prove it.”
Emma heard and looked back.
“Danny.”
My name in her voice stopped me.
Not because it was soft.
Because she sounded afraid of what I could become.
I hated that.
For the first time in years, I cared whether someone feared me.
I looked at Halden.
“Call the police yourself or I do.”
He called.
By evening, Rose was moved to a legitimate facility under emergency protection.
Emma refused to leave until she saw her mother asleep safely.
I stayed too.
I told myself it was strategy.
It wasn’t.
At midnight, Emma sat in the hallway beside a vending machine, exhausted beyond pride.
“You should go home,” she said.
“My house is not home.”
She looked at me.
“Then why do you keep everyone trapped in it?”
The question hit harder than expected.
I almost snapped.
Instead, I answered.
“Because outside is where I lost my legs.”
She went quiet.
Then she said, “I lost my father outside too.”
We sat in silence.
Two people with different wounds and the same weather inside.
Luke appeared at the end of the hall.
“We found Vance.”
My old anger returned.
Useful.
Familiar.
“Where?”
“At Bellaro’s west warehouse.”
Emma stood.
I said, “No.”
She looked at me.
“He has answers about my father.”
“He has guns.”
“So do you.”
I almost smiled.
Then Luke said, “There’s more. Bellaro wants to trade.”
“For what?”
May you like
Luke looked at Emma.
“For her.”
