Chương 3
I did not go to Union Station.
I wanted to.
Every instinct I had told me to chase David Sloan, drag him into a room, and make him explain twelve years of lies.
Instead, Rebecca called an ambulance because my left foot had moved.
I argued for six minutes.
She won.
That irritated me more than it should have.
At Northwestern, the neurologist who had treated me since the accident stared at the scan like it had insulted his education.
Dr. Hannah Price had never given me false hope. That was why I trusted her.
Now she stood beside my bed holding the latest images.
“This doesn’t make sense.”
“Good. I’m tired of things that do.”
She ignored me.
“There’s new signal activity.”
“In English.”
“Your spinal cord injury is incomplete. We’ve always known that. But the level of motor response you just demonstrated is significantly beyond anything we’ve seen in three years.”
Rebecca sat near the wall with Sammy asleep against her.
Aaron stood outside the door.
I looked at Dr. Price.
“Could stress cause it?”
“Stress doesn’t rebuild damaged neural pathways.”
“Could therapy?”
“Over time, maybe. But not spontaneously like this.”
I thought of Sammy saying three steps.
I did not tell her.
Not yet.
“What happens now?”
“We test everything.”
“And then?”
“If the signals continue...”
She hesitated.
“What?”
“You may have more recovery potential than we thought.”
Three years ago, those words would have made me cry.
Now they made me suspicious.
Hope had become dangerous.
It asked you to imagine a future, then punished you for believing.
Dr. Price left.
Rebecca waited until the door closed.
“You didn’t tell her about Sammy.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d like at least one doctor in Chicago to think I’m sane.”
Sammy opened one eye.
“You’re not very sane.”
Rebecca smiled.
I almost did too.
Then Aaron entered.
“We missed Sloan.”
My mood disappeared.
“He was at Union Station?”
“Yes.”
Sammy closed his eye again.
Aaron looked at him differently now.
“Camera got him entering at 12:41. He used a ticket under another name and boarded the Milwaukee line.”
“Where did he get off?”
“He didn’t.”
“What?”
“The train arrived. He wasn’t on it.”
“So he jumped?”
“Or got off during an unscheduled stop.”
“Who was the conductor?”
“We’re finding out.”
I looked at the hospital window.
Sloan had spent decades helping my father make problems disappear.
He knew systems.
He knew police.
He knew judges.
He knew me.
But now I knew one thing he did not want known.
Michael had survived the crash.
At least for a while.
“Pull Michael’s death certificate.”
Aaron nodded.
“And every hospital record from that night.”
“Already working on it.”
Rebecca said, “I tried years ago.”
We both looked at her.
“What happened?”
“The county told me the records were sealed because of an active investigation.”
“What investigation?”
“They wouldn’t say.”
“Did you tell Michael’s mother?”
Rebecca’s face changed.
“Our mother died two months after Michael.”
I felt guilt move through me again.
“How?”
“Heart attack.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She never recovered after his funeral.”
I looked down.
Rebecca continued.
“She kept saying something was wrong.”
“What?”
“The body.”
I looked up.
“What about it?”
“She wasn’t allowed to see him.”
My skin prickled.
“Closed casket?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Damage from the crash.”
Except Sammy said Michael survived the crash.
Which meant the explanation was a lie.
“Who arranged the funeral?”
Rebecca’s answer came immediately.
“David Sloan.”
Of course.
Aaron swore softly.
I said, “Exhume the grave.”
Rebecca went still.
Aaron stared at me.
“What?”
“Get a court order. Whatever it takes.”
Rebecca stood.
“You can’t just—”
“I won’t do it without your permission.”
She looked at me.
“This is my brother.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
She was right.
I stopped.
The old version of me would have ordered it.
Paid someone.
Threatened someone.
Made it happen.
The chair had taken many things from me.
Maybe it had also forced me to see what power looked like from the other side.
“I’m asking,” I said.
Rebecca’s anger softened.
After a long moment, she nodded.
“Yes.”
Aaron left to call the attorney.
Sammy woke fully.
“Are we digging up Uncle Michael?”
Rebecca covered her face.
I said, “Maybe.”
“That’s weird.”
“Yes.”
“He won’t be there.”
Silence.
Rebecca lowered her hands.
“What did you say?”
Sammy looked confused.
“He won’t be there.”
“Why?”
“Because he says that’s not where he sleeps.”
My heart began pounding.
“Where does he sleep?”
Sammy thought.
“Under the bells.”
Rebecca frowned.
“What bells?”
He pointed upward.
“Church bells.”
The room changed.
Michael and Rebecca had grown up in Cicero.
I remembered him once mentioning a church where his father had worked maintenance.
“Which church?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Saint Bartholomew.”
“Does it have a cemetery?”
“Small one.”
“Family plot?”
“No.”
Sammy said, “Not outside.”
I stared at him.
“Where?”
“Under.”
Rebecca whispered, “The crypt.”
Saint Bartholomew had a basement crypt used for priests and wealthy donors in the early twentieth century.
Michael had once joked that it was the only place in Cicero where dead men had better real estate than living ones.
I remembered laughing.
Aaron came back in.
“Judge can review an exhumation request tomorrow.”
“Change of plan.”
He frowned.
“We’re going to Saint Bartholomew.”
Rebecca stared at me.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“It’s midnight.”
“Then fewer people will bother us.”
Aaron looked at Sammy.
“We’re taking directions from a six-year-old?”
Sammy crossed his arms.
“I’m almost seven.”
Aaron sighed.
Forty minutes later, we entered Saint Bartholomew through a side door opened by a confused elderly priest who recognized Rebecca.
Father Martin led us downstairs.
The crypt smelled of stone, wax, and age.
My wheelchair barely fit through the narrow hall.
Sammy walked ahead.
“Slow down,” Rebecca whispered.
He ignored her.
At the end of the corridor stood an old iron gate.
Locked.
Father Martin shook his head.
“Nobody’s been in there in years.”
Sammy pointed.
“He’s there.”
Aaron cut the lock.
We entered.
Six stone chambers lined the wall.
Five had engraved names.
One did not.
Rebecca began shaking.
Aaron opened the unmarked chamber.
Inside was a coffin.
Modern.
Not twelve years old.
I looked at him.
“Open it.”
Father Martin protested.
Rebecca whispered, “Do it.”
Aaron lifted the lid.
There was no body.
Inside lay a black suit.
A silver flash drive.
And a photograph of me taken after the accident, unconscious in a hospital bed.
Across the photograph, written in Michael’s handwriting, were five words:
ETHAN, YOUR FATHER DID THIS.
The priest did not want us opening the chamber.
I did not blame him.
Father Martin stood in the crypt holding a flashlight and looking at me like wealth had finally crossed the line into madness.
“This is consecrated ground.”
“So was Michael’s grave,” Rebecca said. “Apparently that didn’t stop anyone from lying to us.”
He looked at her, recognized the pain, and stopped arguing.
While Aaron examined the silver drive, I noticed scratches inside the coffin lid.
Not random.
Letters.
M.G.
Then numbers.
14-6-3.
Michael’s handwriting again.
“What does that mean?” Aaron asked.
Rebecca shook her head.
I did too.
Sammy leaned over the coffin.
“Fourteen, six, three.”
“We can read,” I said.
He gave me a look that six-year-olds reserve for stupid adults.
“Books.”
“What books?”
He pointed toward the church upstairs.
Father Martin frowned.
“The Bible?”
Sammy shrugged.
We tried chapter fourteen, verse six, verse three in half a dozen books before Father Martin suggested John 14:6.
I am the way.
Rebecca whispered the rest from memory.
“The truth and the life.”
Truth.
Michael had been obsessed with leaving trails that sounded like bad movies.
I would have mocked him if he were there.
That thought hurt.
Father Martin suddenly remembered something.
“Michael donated a Bible here.”
“When?”
“Years ago. Before the accident.”
He led us upstairs to the sacristy.
Inside a locked cabinet was a large leather Bible with a small plaque.
In memory of Joseph Grant.
Michael’s father.
Rebecca touched the cover.
“My dad.”
She opened to John 14:6.
A rectangle had been cut into the pages.
Inside was a small key.
Not silver.
Brass.
Attached to it was a paper tag.
LOCKER 63.
“Train station,” Aaron said.
I looked at him.
“Union?”
“Could be.”
Sammy shook his head.
“Not the big one.”
Rebecca crouched.
“Then where?”
He thought.
“The station with the green roof.”
Father Martin answered before any of us could.
“Cicero.”
There was an old commuter station less than ten minutes away with green-painted metal awnings.
We drove there.
Locker 63 still existed in a bank of old rental units near a maintenance corridor.
The brass key fit.
Inside was a cassette recorder, two envelopes, and a hospital wristband.
MICHAEL GRANT.
Date: the night of the crash.
Hospital: Saint Vincent Private Surgical Center.
Not the hospital listed on his death certificate.
Rebecca sat on a bench.
“He was alive.”
There was no question now.
One envelope was addressed to her.
The other to me.
I opened mine.
Ethan,
If you found this, I didn’t get the chance to explain. Whatever happens, do not punish yourself for the crash. It was never your fault. I chose to stay in the car because I believed I could protect you. I would make the same choice again.
I stopped reading.
Michael had written the thing I had needed for twelve years.
And I had found it in a train station locker because a six-year-old told us about a green roof.
The rest of the letter contained one warning.
Your father has a plan. I don’t trust all of it. But I trust him about Sloan.
When we left the station, Aaron’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He lowered the phone.
“Somebody just broke into Rebecca’s apartment.”
Rebecca stood.
“The blue box?”
Aaron nodded.
“Gone.”
May you like
Whoever had watched us knew we were moving through Michael’s trail.
And now they knew we had reached the church.
