Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN WHO CLAIMED TO BE HIS FIANCÉE
Celeste returned the next morning carrying flowers that probably cost more than my monthly grocery budget.
She stopped when she saw Julian.
“You.”
Julian smiled without warmth.
“Nice to see you too.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Visiting my brother.”
“You were told to stay away from him.”
“By you?”
“By his doctors.”
Adrian looked at me.
“My doctors are becoming remarkably controlling.”
I hid a smile.
Celeste placed the flowers down.
Then noticed the photograph of Eleanor Price.
Her face changed.
Just slightly.
But I saw it.
So did Adrian.
“You know her,” he said.
Celeste shook her head.
“No.”
“You looked at that photograph like you knew her.”
“I’ve probably seen her at some company event.”
Julian laughed.
“Company event? Eleanor hasn’t been inside Vale Meridian headquarters for nine years.”
Celeste glared at him.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Filling his head with things he can’t understand.”
Adrian’s voice sharpened.
“My head belongs to me.”
Celeste turned.
“Adrian, I am trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
“Stress.”
“Apparently stress is my full-time profession.”
She lowered her voice.
“Your doctors warned that forcing memories could cause confusion.”
“My confusion comes mostly from everyone refusing to answer questions.”
Celeste looked at me.
“Could we have privacy?”
Adrian answered before I could.
“No.”
Something flashed across her face.
Jealousy.
Anger.
Fear.
I could not tell which.
She opened her purse.
“I brought you something.”
A velvet ring box.
Inside was a platinum band.
Adrian stared at it.
“Our wedding rings were being made together.”
“We’re getting married when?”
“Six weeks.”
Adrian nearly laughed.
“Six weeks?”
“We can postpone.”
“I don’t know you.”
Pain crossed Celeste’s face.
“I know.”
“You expect me to marry someone I don’t remember?”
“I expect you to remember.”
The room became quiet.
Celeste reached for his hand.
This time Adrian let her touch him.
“You loved me,” she whispered.
He looked at her.
For several seconds I felt like an intruder.
Then Adrian asked, “Did I?”
Celeste flinched.
Julian turned toward the window.
I left.
For the next several hours, I avoided Trauma Bay Nine.
It was safer that way.
Adrian Vale was rich, engaged, complicated, and surrounded by secrets.
I was a nurse worrying about my brother’s tuition and whether the transmission in Mom’s twelve-year-old car would survive winter.
Our lives belonged in different universes.
That was what I told myself.
Near the end of my shift, Daniel found me at the nurses’ station.
“I need to ask you something.”
“If this is about quitting his care team, save your breath.”
“It isn’t.”
He handed me a document.
A copy of Adrian’s medical intake.
“There’s a discrepancy.”
“What kind?”
“Paramedics recorded the watch he was wearing.”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember it?”
I did.
Silver casing.
Black leather strap.
Simple face.
Unusually heavy.
“I remember.”
“Adrian doesn’t own that watch.”
I looked at him.
“How can you know?”
“He collects watches. His collection is insured. That model isn’t listed.”
“So it belonged to someone else.”
“Possibly.”
“Why does it matter?”
Daniel slid a photograph across the counter.
Richard Vale.
Adrian’s father.
He was wearing the same watch.
My pulse jumped.
“That belonged to his father?”
“Yes.”
“Then why wasn’t it listed in Adrian’s collection?”
“Because after Richard died, the watch disappeared.”
“When?”
“The night he died.”
I stared at the photograph.
“You think Adrian took it?”
“I think someone gave it to him.”
“Who?”
Daniel looked toward Trauma Bay Nine.
“That is what we need to find out.”
I walked into Adrian’s room twenty minutes later.
Celeste had left.
The watch rested inside a clear hospital valuables bag.
Adrian held it carefully.
“Daniel told you?”
“Yes.”
“My father’s.”
“Apparently.”
He turned it over.
“There’s something engraved.”
I moved closer.
Tiny letters were carved on the back.
FOR A.V. — WHEN THE TRUTH COSTS EVERYTHING.
Adrian’s breathing changed.
“A.V.,” I whispered.
“Adrian Vale.”
“Your father gave it to you?”
“He might have.”
He pressed his thumb against the back plate.
It shifted.
Both of us froze.
The casing was not solid.
There was a hidden compartment.
Inside was something smaller than a fingernail.
A microSD card.
Adrian stared at me.
“My father hid this in his watch.”
“Looks that way.”
“Should we call Daniel?”
I thought about the photograph.
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, FIND ELEANOR.
I thought about damaged brake lines.
About missing identification.
About a mysterious tuition payment followed by a threatening message.
“I think,” I said carefully, “we should know what’s on it first.”
Adrian looked at me.
Then smiled.
“Detective Carter.”
“Don’t get excited.”
We borrowed a laptop from Julian.
The card contained one file.
A video.
Richard Vale appeared on-screen.
Older than the photographs.
Exhausted.
Terrified.
He looked directly into the camera.
“Adrian, if you’re watching this, then I probably failed to tell you the truth while I was alive.”
Adrian stopped breathing.
Richard continued.
“Everything you believe about Vale Meridian is built on a lie.”
The video flickered.
May you like
Then he said the sentence that changed Adrian’s life forever.
“Eleanor Price was right.”
