Chapter 4 - THE BLUE BRACELET
“Dr. Keller?”
Hannah said the name before anyone else.
Dr. Martin Keller had been Rosewood’s medical director for eleven years.
Eric nodded.
Dominic immediately remembered the forged signature on the transfer forms.
They had assumed Vanessa forged Keller’s name.
“What if the signature wasn’t forged to fool Keller?” Hannah asked.
Eric looked at her.
“It was forged to protect him.”
The distinction changed everything.
Keller could claim ignorance while approving the transfers through another channel.
Eric admitted he had planted the wine bottles.
Hannah stepped toward him.
“You put your hands on my storage room.”
“Yes.”
“You let them call me a thief.”
His face tightened.
“Vanessa told me to.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“No.”
At least he didn’t pretend it did.
Eric explained Vanessa’s plan.
She had discovered that Santoro and Keller intended to move Hannah and the sixty-seven residents after the charity auction.
Vanessa tried to get Hannah fired first.
“She thought if Hannah left publicly under accusation, she’d be outside Rosewood when the transfers started.”
Hannah stared at him.
“She could have told me.”
“She thought your phone was monitored.”
“And humiliating me in front of everyone was safer?”
Eric looked ashamed.
“She panicked.”
It was an explanation, not an excuse.
Hannah appreciated the difference.
“Where is she?”
“Old physical therapy building across the service road.”
Dominic ordered two guards to stay with Evelyn and Teresa while he, Hannah, and Eric crossed the grounds.
Vanessa was inside a locked treatment room.
Her expensive dress was torn at the shoulder. One shoe was missing.
When Dominic entered, she flinched.
Then she saw Hannah.
“You’re still here.”
Hannah’s anger returned.
“You sound disappointed.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
“I wanted you gone.”
“I noticed.”
“I wanted you alive.”
Hannah placed the emerald bracelet on the table.
“Then start treating me like I’m entitled to my own life.”
Vanessa looked at her for a long moment.
“You are.”
It was the first apology she knew how to give.
Dominic crouched in front of his sister.
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“Because every company involved leads back to you.”
“I could have helped.”
“Or Michael could have buried you.”
Vanessa reached inside the lining of her dress.
She removed half of a torn photograph.
It showed Carlo Romano beside a young Michael Santoro.
A third person had been torn away.
“The original ledger wasn’t enough,” Vanessa said. “Dad knew Michael would claim it was fabricated. He needed someone who could prove the early trials existed.”
Hannah looked toward the missing half.
“My mother?”
“No.”
Vanessa looked at her.
“You.”
Hannah shook her head.
“I was sixteen.”
“You were photographed at the original site.”
Hannah remembered the old Polaroid.
Vanessa continued.
“Santoro spent years trying to find every copy.”
That was why Hannah had been selected for Rosewood.
Not because her blood was special.
Not because she had some hidden medical condition.
She was evidence.
A living connection between the old program and the new one.
“What about my wellness samples?”
“Keller used them to determine whether you remembered anything.”
Hannah frowned.
“How can blood tell him that?”
“It couldn’t.”
Vanessa’s mouth tightened.
“The screenings were an excuse to collect your medical history and get you into Keller’s office. He recorded your answers.”
Hannah remembered the strange questions.
Childhood hospitals.
Family illnesses.
Whether she suffered nightmares.
Whether certain symbols triggered anxiety.
She had thought it was an overly thorough intake form.
They had been probing her memory.
Dominic stood.
“Where’s the ledger?”
Vanessa looked at Eric.
He removed his maintenance jacket.
Sewn inside the lining was a thin leather notebook.
Hannah almost laughed from disbelief.
The object everyone had been searching for had been walking through Rosewood all evening.
Eric handed it to Dominic.
Names.
Dates.
Dosages.
Payments.
Facility codes.
And signatures.
Dozens of them.
Including Keller’s.
Including Santoro’s.
But Carlo’s name appeared too.
Dominic stared at it.
Vanessa touched his arm.
“Keep reading.”
Beside Carlo’s signature was a handwritten notation:
Authorization withdrawn. Subjects must be notified immediately.
Three days later:
C. Romano removed as sponsor representative. M. Santoro assumes control.
Dominic exhaled.
His father had not been innocent at the beginning.
He had authorized the original legitimate study.
But when it changed, he tried to stop it.
That truth hurt more than a clean absolution.
Hannah understood why.
Real people were rarely innocent in simple ways.
Vanessa pointed farther down.
A list of adverse incidents included Dr. Samuel Price.
Status:
SURVIVED. RELOCATED.
Hannah looked at her mother when they returned to Rosewood.
“You told me Santoro killed him.”
“I believed he had.”
“He survived.”
Evelyn stared at the entry.
For the first time, hope crossed her exhausted face.
Then Hannah noticed another name.
EVELYN BROOKS — STAFF WHISTLEBLOWER.
Beside it:
RETAINED FOR LONGITUDINAL OBSERVATION.
Hannah felt sick.
Her mother had not simply spent eighteen years running.
At some point, she had been captured.
Evelyn finally admitted it.
“Seven years.”
Hannah sat down.
“What?”
“I was held in contracted care facilities for seven years.”
Teresa began crying quietly.
Evelyn continued.
She had escaped with help from Vanessa and Dr. Price, who was indeed alive.
“But why didn’t you come home after you escaped?” Hannah asked.
Evelyn’s face crumpled.
“Because they showed me photographs of you.”
Hannah stopped breathing.
“Going to school. Working. At your apartment.”
Santoro had made the threat clear.
Return to Hannah, and Hannah would disappear too.
Hannah wanted to be furious.
Instead, she saw a mother who had lived every day believing distance was the only gift she could give her child.
Dominic turned another page.
“Keller approved the current Rosewood program.”
Vanessa nodded.
“He’s the one Santoro answers to on the medical side.”
A security guard rushed in.
“Dr. Keller’s gone.”
Dominic looked up.
“When?”
“Seven minutes ago.”
Hannah glanced toward the resident wing.
The residents.
Keller didn’t need to take them anywhere.
He already had access to them.
She ran.
In Teresa’s room, a medication cart stood unattended.
Frank was holding a small paper cup.
Inside was a blue pill.
“Hannah?”
She knocked it from his hand.
“Don’t take that.”
Frank stared at her.
“I wasn’t going to. I was saving it.”
“Why?”
He reached into his robe and produced an old prescription bottle.
“I saved one from last spring too.”
The tablets looked identical.
Hannah checked the labels.
Different medications.
Same pill.
Then Frank said something that made everyone go silent.
“I know where Keller keeps the rest.”
Dominic frowned.
“How?”
May you like
Frank looked embarrassed.
“Because three months ago, he paid me to pretend I couldn’t remember seeing him.”
