Chapter 4 - WHAT DR. MORRISON KNEW
They returned to the clinic before closing.
Caspian wanted Elias beside them.
Sloan refused.
“This is my doctor.”
“He's connected to my family.”
“He also warned me.”
“Which means he knows something.”
“Then let me speak first.”
Caspian stared at her.
Six months earlier, he would have argued until Sloan surrendered from exhaustion.
This time he nodded.
“Fine.”
Dr. Morrison was waiting in his office.
He looked older than he had that morning.
When he saw Caspian, he closed the door.
“I hoped you wouldn't come.”
Caspian remained standing.
“Tell me about Julian.”
Dr. Morrison removed his glasses.
“I was a pediatric resident twenty-seven years ago.”
He looked toward Sloan.
“That warehouse fire brought several patients to our hospital, including Evelyn Reed and her infant son.”
“Julian survived,” Caspian said.
“Yes.”
“Then what happened?”
Dr. Morrison hesitated.
“Your mother was terrified.”
“Of Malcolm?”
“No.”
That answer surprised everyone.
“Of your father.”
Caspian's face hardened.
“My father was dead within two years.”
“He was violent long before he died.”
Dr. Morrison continued carefully.
“Your mother believed Julian would be used against her. She arranged for him to disappear through a private adoption.”
Sloan stared.
“So Malcolm didn't steal him?”
“Malcolm helped her.”
The reversal hit Caspian visibly.
For hours he had been rebuilding his childhood around betrayal.
Now the foundation shifted again.
“Why tell me he died?”
“Because Evelyn believed you were old enough to accidentally reveal the truth.”
Caspian laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“So she buried my brother while he was alive.”
“She was trying to protect him.”
“From my father.”
“Yes.”
Caspian looked away.
Sloan understood that expression.
Love fighting anger.
It was exactly what she felt toward him.
“Where is Julian now?” she asked.
Dr. Morrison hesitated.
“I don't know.”
Caspian stepped closer.
“You were his emergency contact.”
“For six months. Then the adoptive family moved.”
“Name.”
“I won't give you that.”
Caspian's voice dropped.
“You will.”
Sloan touched his arm.
“Caspian.”
He looked down at her hand.
She hadn't touched him voluntarily in six months.
The anger in his face softened.
“Ask him,” he said.
Sloan turned to Morrison.
“Why did you warn me about Malcolm?”
The doctor sighed.
“Because three months ago Malcolm contacted me.”
Caspian stiffened.
“He asked whether I remembered Evelyn's younger son.”
“Why?”
“He said Julian had begun asking questions about his birth family.”
“Then Malcolm knows where he is.”
“Apparently.”
Sloan remembered Daniel Mercer.
“The physical therapist.”
Dr. Morrison nodded.
“Daniel is Julian.”
Silence swallowed the room.
Caspian sat down.
Not gracefully.
As though his legs had simply stopped holding him.
“The man following Sloan…”
“Is your brother.”
Sloan's thoughts raced.
“Why follow me?”
Morrison looked directly at her stomach.
“Because Malcolm told him you were pregnant.”
Caspian stood again.
“How did Malcolm know?”
“I don't know.”
Sloan did.
Or thought she did.
“My employee paperwork.”
She worked at Morrison's clinic.
Her emergency contact form had listed her Boston history before she changed names.
But Morrison shook his head.
“I never told him.”
“Then someone here did.”
The clinic suddenly felt contaminated.
A place Sloan had considered safe now seemed threaded into the life she escaped.
Dr. Morrison opened a desk drawer.
“I kept something Evelyn gave me.”
He removed a small velvet pouch.
Inside was a child's silver bracelet.
Engraved with two initials.
J.R.
Caspian touched it.
His expression broke.
“I remember this.”
“You do?”
“My mother put it on Julian before the fire.”
Dr. Morrison nodded.
“She removed it before the adoption because it could identify him.”
“Why keep it?”
“She said someday he might deserve proof of who he was.”
Sloan looked at Caspian.
“Daniel deserves that.”
Caspian closed his hand around the bracelet.
Then Dr. Morrison said quietly, “There's something else.”
He opened an old envelope.
Inside was a photograph of Evelyn Reed holding Julian.
Standing beside her was Malcolm.
On Malcolm's wrist was the second silver rosary.
But behind them, partially visible, stood another man.
Sloan recognized him.
Not from Caspian's world.
From her own childhood.
Her father.
Thomas Hale.
Sloan stopped breathing.
“My father died when I was sixteen.”
Dr. Morrison stared at her.
“You're Thomas Hale's daughter?”
Caspian turned.
“You never told me his name.”
“You never asked.”
Morrison sat down slowly.
“This changes everything.”
Sloan's voice shook.
“How did my father know Evelyn Reed?”
“He wasn't just her friend.”
Dr. Morrison looked toward Caspian.
“Thomas was the nurse who helped your mother arrange Julian's disappearance.”
Sloan gripped the desk.
“My father was a nurse?”
“Before you were born.”
“He told me he worked in medical supply.”
“He did later.”
Caspian watched her carefully.
Sloan stared at the photograph.
Her father had died after years of telling her that saving one innocent life mattered more than pleasing powerful people.
Maybe now she understood why.
“Did Malcolm know who I was when Caspian started seeing me?”
Morrison didn't answer.
That silence was enough.
Sloan turned toward Caspian.
“He knew.”
Caspian's expression darkened.
Then Elias entered without knocking.
That alone told them something was wrong.
“Daniel's here.”
Caspian closed his hand around Julian's bracelet.
“Where?”
“Parking lot.”
“Alone?”
Elias shook his head.
“No.”
He held up his phone.
On the security camera, Daniel stood beside Malcolm Reed.
The supposedly half-paralyzed old man was standing without assistance.
May you like
And around Malcolm's neck hung the missing silver rosary.
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