Chapter 3 - The Six Hospital Visits
“There’s one more thing.”
A metal box sat beneath the table.
Adrien opened it.
Empty.
Except for a business card.
Dr. Samuel Kline.
Neurological Oncology.
Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Adrien stopped breathing.
He read the card twice.
Then a third time.
“What is this?”
Marco’s expression changed.
“I don’t know.”
Adrien immediately called the number.
The receptionist refused to discuss patients.
Adrien gave his name.
The voice became more cautious, not more cooperative.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Moretti. We cannot confirm whether anyone has been treated here.”
Adrien hung up.
“Get hospital records.”
Marco did not move.
“Adrien.”
“Get them.”
“That crosses a line.”
Adrien stared at him.
“Since when do you care?”
“Since the line belongs to your wife.”
“Former wife.”
The words came out automatically.
Marco looked at him.
Adrien hated the way they sounded.
They did not yet have divorce papers.
Legally, Elena was still his wife.
Emotionally, he no longer knew what she was.
By evening, they learned only one fact.
Elena had visited Northwestern six times during the previous seven months.
No diagnosis.
No physician notes.
No laboratory results.
Just dates.
Six visits.
Adrien remembered none of them.
He searched his calendar.
On the first date, he had been in Las Vegas.
The second, meeting Victoria for dinner.
The third, hosting negotiations.
The fourth...
He stopped.
It was Elena’s birthday.
He had sent flowers because he was delayed in New York.
Victoria had also been in New York.
Adrien sat in his study staring at the appointment date.
Memory returned with brutal precision.
Elena had called him that evening.
“Will you be home tonight?”
“No.”
A pause.
“Tomorrow?”
“I’ll try.”
Another pause.
“Adrien, if I asked you to come home, would you?”
He had been irritated.
There were men waiting.
Victoria waiting.
“Elena, don’t do this tonight.”
“Do what?”
“Make me choose between business and some emotional test.”
Silence.
Then she said, “Forget it.”
He had.
Until now.
Adrien closed his eyes.
Marco stood near the door.
“Find Dr. Kline.”
“We already have people looking.”
“No. Find him.”
Two days later, Samuel Kline returned from a medical conference in Boston.
Adrien did not threaten him.
That surprised everyone, including Adrien.
He simply waited outside the physician’s private office until Kline arrived.
The doctor was in his early sixties, gray-haired and unimpressed.
“Mr. Moretti.”
“You know who I am.”
“Most people do.”
“My wife was your patient.”
Kline removed his glasses.
“I cannot discuss a patient without authorization.”
“Elena is missing.”
Something flickered across the physician’s face.
“Missing?”
“She left eleven days ago.”
Kline remained silent.
Adrien stepped closer.
“If she is sick, I need to know.”
“You needed to know when she wanted to tell you.”
Adrien’s voice lowered.
“What does that mean?”
“It means whatever your wife wished you to know was hers to share.”
“Is she dying?”
The question escaped before Adrien could control it.
Kline’s face changed.
Not enough.
But enough.
Adrien saw it.
His chest constricted.
“What happened to her?”
The doctor said nothing.
Adrien’s hand closed around the edge of the desk.
“Tell me.”
“I cannot.”
“Then tell me if she is safe.”
“I don’t know where she is.”
“Did she have cancer?”
Kline’s eyes hardened.
“You are asking the wrong questions.”
“What question should I ask?”
The doctor looked at him for a long moment.
“Why did your wife believe she had to face six months of medical testing alone?”
Adrien felt the floor disappear beneath him.
He left without remembering the elevator.
Outside, Chicago had begun to snow.
Marco followed him toward the car.
Adrien stood beside the open door.
“She was sick.”
“We don’t know that.”
“She was seeing an oncologist.”
“Yes.”
“And I didn’t know.”
Marco said nothing.
Adrien looked at him.
“I didn’t know.”
This time, Marco answered.
“No.”
The word hurt because it contained no comfort.
That evening, Adrien drank alone in the great hall where he had ended his marriage.
He stood at the same place.
Same chandeliers.
Same marble.
The sapphire pendant still lay inside his desk upstairs.
He had not touched it since that night.
He could still see Elena sitting among two hundred guests.
Still see the instant her face became completely still.
Four days earlier, he had learned she knew he intended to end the marriage.
How?
He did not know.
But she had come anyway.
Dressed in the navy gown he once loved.
Wearing the sapphires.
Not to fight.
Perhaps simply to see what kind of man he had decided to become.
His phone rang at midnight.
Unknown number.
Adrien answered.
No voice.
Only breathing.
“Elena?”
The line remained silent.
Every muscle in his body locked.
“Elena.”
The call disconnected.
Marco traced it within minutes.
A disposable phone.
Activated near Union Station.
Adrien had half the city searching before dawn.
They found the phone in a trash bin.
No fingerprints.
No camera footage useful enough to identify anyone.
But the call changed something.
May you like
For the first time, Adrien understood Elena’s disappearance might not be voluntary.
The possibility transformed regret into fear.
