Anna’s Message
Chapter 04 - Anna’s Message
Anna sat close to the camera in the video.
Her hair was shorter than Ethan remembered, and silver strands appeared near her temples. She wore a gray clinic uniform without a name badge.
“Ethan,” she said, “I do not know whether this will reach you.”
Lucas moved closer to the screen.
Anna explained that the highway accident had been staged.
She had been traveling to meet federal investigators with evidence of medical-identity fraud. Someone forced her car from the road, but she escaped before it caught fire.
A private ambulance found her.
Instead of taking her to a public hospital, it delivered her to North River.
The clinic declared her confused after trauma and placed her under an emergency guardianship.
The guardian was Victoria Sloan—Anna’s former friend.
Victoria controlled Anna’s visitors, medication, and legal mail.
She told Ethan that Anna died.
She told Anna that Ethan had identified the body and remarried within weeks.
For years, Anna believed both Ethan and Lucas had rejected her.
Then a night nurse secretly showed her a photograph of Lucas at a school science fair.
Anna began collecting evidence.
She persuaded a clinic technician to hide the memory card inside Lucas’s blue hat during one of Victoria’s unauthorized visits.
“The mark beneath his hair happened when he became dizzy and fell against a padded cabinet,” Anna said. “Victoria refused to take him to a public hospital because the clinic visit would be discovered.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
The visible injury was serious enough to require examination, but the deeper harm came from concealment.
Anna ended the recording with one instruction.
“Do not arrive angry. Arrive with a warrant. North River has erased people before.”
Ortiz looked at Ethan.
“Can you follow that?”
He wanted to tear the clinic apart with his hands.
Instead, he answered, “Yes.”
May you like
Lucas watched him.
For the first time that day, the boy’s shoulders lowered slightly.
