Then I slowly reached into my uniform pocket.
All three of them watched my hand.
I pulled out my phone.
I placed it on the table beside Emily’s medical forms.
The room went quiet.
Derek’s smile disappeared.
Jason’s shoulders stiffened.
Evelyn’s expression changed almost imperceptibly.
“What are you doing?” Derek asked.
I looked directly at him.
“My daughter called me three hours ago.”
No one answered.
“She was terrified.”
I paused.
“And she wasn’t the first person I called.”
Evelyn’s face tightened.
“What does that mean?”
I didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, I looked toward the hallway.
Footsteps were approaching.
Several people appeared near the nurses’ station.
They weren’t hospital employees.
They wore dark suits.
One carried a folder.
Another stood several feet behind him, watching the room carefully.
Derek straightened.
Jason looked toward his mother.
Evelyn’s confidence began to disappear.
The man holding the folder walked toward the doorway.
He stopped.
He looked at me.
Then he nodded once.
“Colonel Hart.”
I returned the nod.
His eyes moved toward the Bennetts.
Then back to me.
“We need to talk.”
Jason suddenly looked nervous.
“Who are you?”
The man didn’t answer him.
Instead, he stepped into the room.
Evelyn stared at him.
And then recognition appeared on her face.
For the first time that night, she looked genuinely frightened.
Because the person standing in that doorway was not someone she could dismiss with a phone call.
He was someone whose presence meant that the Bennetts’ carefully protected world was beginning to close in around them.
Derek pushed himself away from the doorframe.
“Mom?”
Evelyn didn’t respond.
Jason looked at me.
“What did you do?”
I finally picked up my phone.
“I didn’t do anything to you,” I said calmly.
“You did this to yourselves.”
Emily looked at me from the hospital bed.
