CHAPTER 8 – The Nurse Who Remembered Everything
The next morning, Grant reopened a chapter of his life he had tried to forget.
Mount Grace Medical Center.
The hospital where the quadruplets had been born three years earlier.
Most of the staff had changed.
Most records had been archived.
But one nurse still worked there.
Margaret Ellis.
She recognized Claire immediately.
"My goodness..." she whispered. "Those boys have grown so much."
Grant stepped forward.
"We need to know what happened the night they were born."
Margaret's smile disappeared.
"I hoped no one would ever ask me that."
She led them into a quiet office.
Then she locked the door.
"The delivery was dangerous," she began.
"Claire nearly died."
Grant lowered his head.
He had never known.
"I called your office six times."
Grant looked up sharply.
"What?"
"No one ever let you speak to me."
Margaret opened an old storage box.
Inside were handwritten notes she had secretly kept.
"You weren't the only visitor that night."
She removed a faded visitor log.
One signature made Grant's blood run cold.
Richard Sloan.
Another name appeared beneath it.
The signature was almost unreadable.
Only two initials remained clear.
A. W.
Grant frowned.
"Who is A.W.?"
Margaret slowly shook her head.
"I never learned the name."
She hesitated.
"But I heard Richard say something before they left."
"What?"
Margaret took a slow breath.
"He said... 'Only one of the four matters.'"
The room fell silent.
Grant stared at Claire.
Claire stared at the boys playing outside through the office window.
Only one mattered?
Why?
Before anyone could speak again, Margaret pulled one last envelope from the box.
"I've kept this for three years."
It was addressed in Grant's own handwriting.
He had written it years earlier.
Yet...
May you like
He had never seen it before.
Someone had intercepted every letter Claire had ever tried to send him.
