His expression changed immediately.
« Julian ! »
The head of security entered.
Vincent showed her the photograph.
“Find out who did this.”
Julian nodded and walked out.
Emma tried to call Lily.
No answer.
She called the hospital.
A nurse picked up the phone after several rings.
Emma gave her identity.
“Please check room 814.”
There was a silence.
Then the nurse spoke again.
“Miss Carter, your father is no longer in his room.”
Emma felt her legs give way.
“What?”
“He was transferred about twenty minutes ago.”
“Transferred where?”
The nurse hesitated.
“The destination doesn’t appear in our system.”
Emma looked at Vincent.
Then the nurse added:
“And the girl who was visiting him left with the team in charge of the transfer.”
Emma could scarcely murmur:
“My sister?”
“Yes.”
The phone slipped through his fingers.
Vincent caught up with him.
Emma turned her eyes to Isabella.
The old lady was crying in silence.
And for the first time, Emma wondered if saving Isabella Moretti had been the worst mistake of her life.
CHAPTER 3: THE WATCH THAT CONTAINED THE TRUTH
The hospital corridor smelled of disinfectant and warmed coffee.
Emma walked hurriedly to her father’s room, followed by Vincent and Julian.
A doctor greeted them near the nurses’ station.
Her name was Rachel Bennett.
She seemed exhausted.
“Miss Carter?”
Emma stopped.
“Where is my father?”
The doctor looked at Vincent.
“We are investigating an unauthorized transfer.”
Emma stared at her.
“Not allowed?”
“Order has appeared in our computer system.”
“Who seized it?”
“The credentials used belonged to Dr. Leonard Price.”
Vincent’s face hardens.
« Price ? »
The doctor nodded.
“He is an administrator of the hospital.”
Vincent knew this name.
Leonard Price was a member of the advisory board of the Moretti Foundation.
He also had a close working relationship with Jonathan Sterling.
Emma noticed Vincent’s reaction.
“Do you know him?”
“Yes.”
They are stomachs are noua.
“Then tell me where he took my family.”
Vincent shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Emma passed in front of him.
Room 814 was at the end of the hall.
She opened the door.
The bed was empty.
The sheets had been changed.
His father’s glass of water was gone.
His slippers were no longer under the chair.
Emma remains motionless.
For a moment, she felt as if her father had been erased from this place.
Then she saw something under the radiator.
A folded piece of paper.
She knelt down.
She immediately recognized her father’s handwriting.
On the paper, it was written:
FOR EMMA.
Her hands trembled as she unfolded it.
REMEMBER THE BLUE BIRD.
Emma contemplated these words.
When she was little, Daniel called her his little blue bird because she sang non-stop.
His mother often sang him a lullaby telling the story of a blue bird finding his way home.
Emma had almost forgotten her.
She folded the paper.
Vincent appeared at the door.
“Did you find something?”
Emma hesitated.
His father’s message was addressed to him personally.
She slipped it into her pocket.
“Nothing useful.”
Vincent watched him.
He knew she was hiding something.
But he asked no questions.
A nurse approached with a transparent bag.
“Miss Carter, here are your father’s personal belongings.”
Inside were reading glasses, a wallet and an old silver wristwatch.
Emma recognized the watch immediately.
Daniel had inherited it from his own father.
He wore it every day.
Even at the hospital, he refused to remove it.
Emma took the bag.
It was then that she noticed small marks around the back cover of the watch.
His father was a mechanical engineer.
He had spent years explaining to her that small objects could hide complicated mechanisms.
She pressed the lid with her thumb.
He moved.
Underneath was a tiny memory card.
Emma figs.
She closed the watch before anyone noticed anything.
That evening, she found herself alone in a guest room at Vincent’s home in the Gold Coast district.
The billionaire had offered her a safe place to stay.
Emma had agreed only after learning that the police were reviewing the hospital’s surveillance videos and looking for the missing medical vehicle.
She couldn’t go back to an empty apartment when someone had just threatened her father.
The guest room was larger than the apartment she shared with Daniel and Lily.
Through the window, Lake Michigan looked black under the night sky.
Emma inserted the memory card into a laptop.
A screen asking for a password appeared.
She tried her date of birth.
Incorrect.
Lily’s.
Incorrect.
Then she remembered the message.
The blue bird.
She wrote these words in English.
BLUEBIRD.
The password worked.
Four files appeared.
ARCHIVES OF THE FACTORY.
GRACE CARTER.
BLUEBIRD PROJECT.
IF THEY FIND ME.
Emma opened the second folder.
A video appeared.
She clicked on it.
