Chapter 4 - The Fourth Boy
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The Phantom had awakened, stretching its dark wings inside my chest. I didn’t want to become him again. I just wanted to remain the gentle father who could keep his daughter safe. Yet that father was now fully prepared to tear through every powerful name written on that bloodstained paper.
Suddenly, Bishop stopped typing.
For several agonizing seconds, there was nothing but dead silence on the encrypted line.
“Commander,” he finally said, his voice strangely tense. “There’s something you need to see about the fourth boy.”
I moved farther away from Nora’s room, stopping beside a darkened family waiting area to ensure privacy.
“Preston Caldwell?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“What about him?”
Bishop hesitated. I remembered that specific hesitation. During our years in Vanguard, Bishop had been the man who could read three hundred pages of enemy intelligence and tell me which single sentence actually mattered. He never delayed unless the truth was incredibly complicated.
“Preston Caldwell checked into Saint Matthew’s Hospital forty-three minutes before Nora arrived at yours,” Bishop revealed.
I frowned, my tactical mind instantly trying to align the timeline. “For what?”
“A severe concussion. A split lip. And a defensively injured hand.”
The hallway seemed to become quieter around me, the temperature dropping a few degrees.
“Are you saying someone attacked him?” I demanded.
“I’m saying the preliminary ER intake notes state he was injured near the north parking structure at Wellington University.”
The exact same place where Nora had been found bleeding on the concrete. I looked back through the glass toward my daughter's room.
“That doesn’t make him innocent,” I countered coldly.
“No, it doesn't,” Bishop agreed. “Keep going.”
Bishop exhaled softly. “His family attorney arrived seventeen minutes after he was admitted. Then, someone from Caldwell Private Banking’s corporate security division requested that hospital staff permanently restrict access to all of his medical records.”
“That sounds exactly like how the Caldwells operate.”
“There’s more, Commander. Preston tried to call campus police three times before his father finally arrived at his bedside.”
That made me straighten up. “Did he get through?”
“First call lasted forty-one seconds. Second lasted twelve. Third never connected.”
“And after his father arrived?”
May you like
“No more calls. Complete radio silence.”
I stared down at the four names on the bloodstained paper in my hand. I had assumed the paper named four united attackers. Perhaps Nora had been trying to tell me something infinitely more complicated.
