Chapter 6: The Door Behind Unit Seventeen
For a moment, I couldn't hear anything except the rush of blood in my ears.
Your fiancé's family.
Marcus's father had died when Marcus was nineteen. His mother lived in Connecticut, rarely attended family gatherings, and had never spoken to me about her husband's work.
I knew Marcus had grown up wealthy.
I knew his father had been involved in hospital administration.
I had never connected those facts to my own family.
Now every memory seemed to rearrange itself.
I looked toward the chapel entrance.
Marcus was still watching us.
He wasn't running toward me. He wasn't shouting. He simply stood there with his hands in his pockets, his expression controlled.
That frightened me more than anger would have.
"Renee," I whispered, "what did his family do?""
She shook her head.
"I can't explain everything on the street.""
"Then where?""
"There's a records building behind the old county hospital. Your key should open a storage room on the lower level.""
"The hospital is still there?""
"Part of it. The original building was renovated, but the archive wing was never fully demolished.""
I looked at the faded hospital tag.
Room seventeen.
The number on my mother's letter.
"Why didn't you go there yourself?""
Renee looked down at Josiah.
"Because I promised your mother I'd wait until you were old enough to make your own decision. And because I was afraid they'd recognize me.""
"Who?""
She didn't answer.
Behind us, the chapel doors opened.
Marcus began crossing the courtyard.
Renee immediately stepped backward.
"Take the key," she said.
"Take your father's watch. And keep that letter somewhere safe.""
"What about you?""
"I'll be fine.""
"You don't look fine.""
A sad smile touched her lips.
"I haven't been fine in a long time.""
Marcus reached the bottom of the chapel steps.
"Ava," he called.
"Please come back inside.""
I turned toward him.
"Why?""
"Because we need to talk.""
"We've been talking. You haven't answered a single question.""
His gaze moved to Renee.
"Who is this woman?""
Renee's face went rigid.
I stepped between them.
"Her name is Renee.""
"Do you know her?""
"No.""
"Then why are you trusting her?""
I held up the envelope.
"Because she gave me something my mother wrote.""
Marcus's jaw tightened.
"Your mother has been dead for eleven years.""
The words sounded cruel coming from his mouth.
Renee flinched.
I stared at him.
"Don't use my mother's death to make me doubt her.""
"I'm trying to protect you.""
"From what?""
He glanced at the watch.
Then the key.
Then Renee.
His eyes lingered on her face as if he were searching his memory.
For the first time, I saw genuine uncertainty in his expression.
Renee noticed it too.
She pulled Josiah closer.
"Stay away from us, Marcus.""
His head snapped toward her.
"You know who I am?""
Renee didn't answer.
Marcus took a step forward.
"Have we met?""
She turned away.
That was enough.
I grabbed her arm.
"Renee, wait.""
But she was already moving toward the bus shelter, guiding Josiah beside her.
"Please," I called.
"I need answers.""
She looked back once.
"You'll find them in Room Seventeen.""
Then she disappeared around the corner with the boy.
I stood motionless until Marcus came to my side.
"Come home with me," he said quietly.
I laughed once, without humor.
"Home?""
"Our apartment. We can sit down and work through this.""
"Work through what? My father possibly being alive? Your family being involved in his disappearance? My aunt lying to me for most of my life?""
"You don't have proof of any of that.""
"Then why are you scared?""
He looked at me for a long moment.
Finally, he said, "Because I know how these stories end.""
A chill ran through me.
"What stories?""
He rubbed his forehead.
"My father used to tell me that some people destroy their own lives searching for answers that won't change anything.""
"Was he talking about my father?""
Marcus said nothing.
I stepped away.
"Did your father know Thomas Bennett?""
His silence lasted two seconds too long.
"Yes," he admitted.
The courtyard seemed to shrink around us.
"How?""
"They worked together.""
"Where?""
Marcus looked toward the chapel.
"At the hospital.""
I gripped the watch.
"Then you're coming with me.""
His eyebrows rose.
"What?""
"To Room Seventeen. If you know something, you're going to tell me there.""
"No.""
The answer came too quickly.
I studied him.
"Why not?""
"Because the records are probably gone. Because you have no idea what you're looking for. Because this could be some elaborate scam.""
"Then it won't hurt you to come.""
He stared at me.
For the first time, his polished composure cracked.
"If you go into that room, you may find documents with my father's signature. You may find things I can't explain.""
I felt my stomach twist.
"Things you can't explain, or things you don't want me to see?""
Marcus looked away.
I turned toward the street.
A taxi slowed near the curb.
I raised my hand.
"Ava, wait.""
I stopped without turning around.
Marcus's voice softened.
"Please don't make me choose between you and my family.""
I looked back at him.
"You made that choice when you decided I wasn't allowed to know the truth about my own father.""
I climbed into the taxi.
He didn't follow.
As the car pulled away, I watched him through the rear window. He remained beneath the chapel arch, his hands hanging at his sides.
For one brief second, he looked less like a man who had lost his bride and more like someone who had just realized a secret buried for decades was about to surface.
The old county hospital stood twenty minutes away.
By the time I arrived, the afternoon sunlight had shifted across its weathered brick walls. The newer medical center rose behind it, bright and modern, while the original records wing remained tucked between two service buildings.
A security guard sat behind the glass entrance.
I showed him the faded hospital tag and told him I needed to retrieve an old family record.
He examined the key.
"Archive storage is downstairs," he said.
"But that wing has been closed for years.""
"Can you let me in?""
He hesitated, then glanced at my wedding gown.
"Ma'am, are you sure this can't wait?""
"No.""
Something in my voice convinced him.
He unlocked a narrow door behind the reception desk and led me down a brightly lit corridor. The air smelled of disinfectant and old paper. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead.
At the end of the corridor, a metal stairwell descended to the basement.
The guard stopped at the top.
"Room numbers are on the doors. I'll wait here.""
I thanked him and went down alone.
The basement was cleaner than I expected. White walls. Gray flooring. Rows of locked storage doors beneath evenly spaced ceiling lights.
I found the seventeenth door at the end of the corridor.
A brass plate read ARCHIVE STORAGE.
My hand shook as I inserted the key.
It turned smoothly.
The lock clicked.
Inside stood a small room lined with metal shelves, cardboard boxes, and filing cabinets. A single desk occupied the center. On it sat a dusty ledger and a sealed envelope.
My name was written across the envelope.
Ava Bennett.
I approached slowly.
The handwriting wasn't my mother's.
It belonged to my father.
I lifted the envelope with trembling hands and opened it.
Inside was a photograph of a hospital corridor. Two men stood near a patient bed.
One was my father, younger than I remembered him.
The other was Marcus's father.
On the back, someone had written a date and a sentence.
If anything happens to me, find out why they changed the patient's name.
Beneath the photograph was a hospital admission form.
The original patient's name had been crossed out.
A new name had been written over it.
I leaned closer, barely breathing.
The patient number matched the number on my father's old transfer record.
But the name on the line beneath it wasn't Thomas Bennett.
It was my mother's.
May you like
And beside her name, in a box marked RELATIONSHIP TO PATIENT, someone had written one word.
*WIFE.*
