Chapter 2 - The Missing Ingredient
Lily stabilized shortly before noon.
The improvement was small, but it was enough for Sarah to finally sit down.
She had been standing beside the bed for nearly three hours.
Felix remained outside the room with his phone pressed to his ear.
He called three executives.
Two kitchen managers.
The school.
The event coordinator.
Everyone gave him a different version of the same answer.
No one knew anything.
That meant someone knew everything.
Felix entered the room carrying a printed catering sheet.
Sarah did not look at him.
“What did you find?”
“The breakfast menu was changed last night.”
Her head lifted.
“Changed how?”
“The original dessert was fruit.”
Felix placed the paper on the counter.
“Someone replaced it with miniature pastries from Marlowe House.”
Sarah stared at the name.
Marlowe House.
Her name.
Her stolen recipes.
Her stolen life.
Now somehow connected to Lily’s hospital bed.
Sarah reached for the paper.
“What was in them?”
“The official ingredient sheet says they were safe.”
“Official sheets can lie.”
Felix knew immediately that she was right.
Sarah opened Lily’s medical bag and removed a laminated emergency card.
“She reacts severely to certain nuts and extracts.”
Felix read the list.
One word caught his attention.
Almond.
He looked back at the catering sheet.
A signature appeared near the bottom.
Menu revision approved: C. Arden.
Felix felt his jaw tighten.
Sarah saw it too.
“Celeste.”
“I don’t know yet.”
“She approved it.”
“That proves she changed the menu.”
Sarah stood.
“My daughter is lying in a hospital bed.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Her voice broke for the first time.
“You don’t.”
Felix absorbed the words without defending himself.
Sarah pointed toward Lily.
“You get to investigate this like a corporate failure.”
“I have spent six years investigating every bite that child puts in her mouth.”
Felix looked at Lily again.
Six years.
Something about the number landed strangely.
He looked at Sarah.
Seven years ago, she had disappeared.
Six years ago, Lily had been born.
The thought came too quickly.
He pushed it away.
A nurse entered.
“Ms. Marlowe, we need your signature.”
Sarah stepped into the hallway.
Felix remained beside the bed.
Lily opened her eyes.
“Is Mommy mad at you?”
“Probably.”
“Did you do something bad?”
Felix swallowed.
“A long time ago, I believed something I shouldn’t have believed.”
“What?”
“That your mother wanted to leave.”
Lily’s eyes stayed on him.
“She doesn’t like leaving people.”
The simplicity of the sentence hurt more than Felix expected.
“No.”
He whispered it.
“I’m beginning to understand that.”
His phone rang again.
This time it was Odette.
He answered.
“Return to the office.”
“No.”
“The merger vote begins in ninety minutes.”
“Then delay it.”
“We cannot delay a transaction involving twelve thousand employees because Sarah Marlowe’s daughter is sick.”
Felix looked at Lily.
“She has a name.”
Odette sighed.
“Felix.”
“Her name is Lily.”
“You are behaving irrationally.”
“I’m investigating why Celeste personally changed the menu at Lily’s school.”
Silence.
It lasted only two seconds.
But Felix heard it.
His mother knew something.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Odette’s answer came carefully.
“Do not accuse your fiancée because you are angry.”
“She isn’t my fiancée anymore.”
This time the silence was longer.
Then Odette said something Felix would remember for the rest of his life.
“Whatever Sarah has told you about that child, do not believe it without proof.”
Felix froze.
He had never mentioned Lily’s father.
He had never asked.
Yet somehow his mother already knew the question forming in his mind.
“Mother.”
Odette disconnected.
Felix slowly lowered the phone.
Then he looked through the hospital glass at Sarah.
Seven years ago.
Six years old.
His mother’s warning.
Suddenly the most frightening question in the hospital had nothing to do with the merger.
May you like
It was whether Felix Kingsley had spent six years not knowing he had a daughter.
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