Chapter 5 - My Father’s Voice
I called the number back seventeen times.
Each call went directly to a disconnected message.
Luka took my phone only after my hands began shaking too badly to hold it.
“That was him.”
“I believe you.”
“He’s alive.”
Luka said nothing.
That silence told me too much.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
I stared at him.
“You knew my father could be alive and you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t know.”
“You just said—”
“I said I suspected.”
He lowered his voice.
“Robert was terrified when I last saw him.”
“He believed people inside Hale Reproductive Medicine were working with someone outside the clinic.”
“Someone who had access to you.”
Ryan.
The name didn’t need to be spoken.
I looked at my daughter.
A tiny fist rested beneath her chin.
She had Ryan’s dark hair.
Or maybe I had only convinced myself she did.
“What did my father want from you?”
“To protect you if he failed.”
“Failed at what?”
Luka looked toward the hallway.
“Exposing M-17.”
I wanted answers immediately.
Instead, another memory returned.
Three days before Dad disappeared, he had visited my apartment.
Ryan had been working late.
Dad stood in my kitchen for nearly an hour.
He kept asking whether I trusted my doctors.
I had become irritated.
I told him Ryan had everything under control.
Dad looked devastated.
Before leaving, he hugged me longer than usual.
Then he slipped something into the pocket of my coat.
I had forgotten about it until that moment.
“My old blue coat.”
Luka frowned.
“What?”
“My father put something inside it.”
“Do you still have it?”
“At home.”
Naomi looked at Luka.
“We shouldn’t go there without checking the house first.”
“I’m going.”
I surprised myself with the certainty in my voice.
Luka shook his head.
“You gave birth today.”
“And someone tried to erase my daughter’s records today.”
I looked him directly in the eyes.
“If my father left me something, I’m finding it.”
An hour later, Naomi arranged for a private medical transport after the hospital cleared my discharge.
Marisol helped wrap my daughter in a white blanket.
Before we left, she touched my arm.
“You still haven’t completed the name field.”
I looked down.
Ryan and I had chosen Olivia.
But Ryan had abandoned her before holding her.
I couldn’t give her a name that suddenly belonged to a broken promise.
I looked at her tiny face.
Then I remembered my mother, who died when I was fourteen.
Her name had been Grace.
“Grace.”
Marisol smiled.
“Grace Carter Bennett?”
I hesitated.
“Grace Carter.”
Outside, Luka waited beside a black SUV.
When I climbed inside, he handed me an envelope.
“This arrived at the nurses’ station ten minutes ago.”
My name was written on the front.
I recognized the handwriting.
My father’s.
Inside were only six words.
BLUE COAT.
May you like
LEFT POCKET.
TRUST NO ONE.
