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I didn't sleep. I paced my bedroom floor, the stainless-steel watch in my palm digging into my skin. Marcus Hale didn’t just leave my life; he was wiped off the map. / Chapter 3 / 10

Chapter 3 - THE STRANGER AT THE DOORBy 7:00 a.m., the police hadn't arrived. I checked the news. The Fairfield Motor Lodge had been raided, but it was empty. No sign of Owen’s family.

Then, a knock at the door. Not the police.

I looked through the peephole. A man in a tailored suit, looking far too clean for the rain-soaked morning. He held up a badge, but it wasn't police issue. It was federal—a agency I didn't recognize.

"Dr. Mercer," he said through the door. "We’re here for the boy. And the contents of that backpack."

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The heavy mahogany door of the east gallery closed softly behind me, but the silence inside did not comfort me. It pressed down like lead.

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The cool marble of the private east gallery felt chilling beneath my fingertips. The pale moonlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows illuminated The Blue Woman, the haunting masterpiece my mother had painted just weeks before her tragic death.

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