Chapter 40: The Doctor's Room

The service corridor was sterile, white tiles and the hum of industrial ventilation. Elena ran, her heels in her hand, the cold floor biting into her stockinged feet. She checked the map she had memorized from Marcus's intel.

*Memory Care Unit. Fourth Floor. Room 412.*

She found the service elevator. It required a key card.

Elena didn't have one. But she had the hairpin she had used to fix her updo in the car.

She jammed it into the lock mechanism. It was a long shot, a movie trope, but desperation made her hands steady. She wiggled it, feeling for the tumblers.

*Click.*

The doors slid open.

She stepped inside and pressed *4*. The elevator smelled of bleach and despair.

When the doors opened on the fourth floor, the atmosphere changed. It was quieter here. The lighting was softer, designed to soothe agitated minds.

Elena walked down the hall. Room 408. Room 410.

Room 412.

The door was closed. A nameplate next to it read *Dr. Aris Thorne*.

She took a breath. This was it. The man who had signed the death certificate. The man who had certified the replacement.

She turned the handle. Unlocked.

The room was dim, illuminated only by the glow of a television playing an old game show. In the bed, a figure lay huddled under a thin blanket. He looked small, frail, a skeleton wrapped in skin.

"Dr. Thorne?" Elena whispered.

The figure stirred. He turned his head slowly. His eyes were milky with cataracts, but they sharpened when they landed on her.

"Is it time?" he rasped. "Is it time for the medicine?"

"No," Elena said, stepping closer. "I'm not a nurse. I'm Elena. I'm Julian Hawthorne's wife."

Thorne flinched. He tried to sit up, his hands scrabbling at the sheets. "Hawthorne? No. No Hawthornes here. Vane said... Vane said I was safe."

"Vane lied," Elena said. She pulled the death certificate from her purse. "He lied to everyone. Including you."

She held the paper up to the TV light.

"You signed this, Doctor. October 12, 1986. Cause of death: SIDS."

Thorne stared at the paper. His breathing hitched, a wet, rattling sound.

"I had to," he whispered. "The baby... he was already gone. Cold. So cold."

"He starved," Elena said. "Didn't he? You saw the signs."

Thorne closed his eyes. Tears leaked out, tracking through the deep lines of his face. "Constance wouldn't feed him. She said he wasn't right. She said he didn't look like a Hawthorne. She left him in the nursery for days."

"And you covered it up."

"Vane made me," Thorne said. "He said he would ruin me. He said he would take my license. My pension. He said he had a solution."

"A replacement," Elena said.

"A healthy boy," Thorne nodded, his voice trembling. "Three years old. But small. Mute. Vane brought him in the middle of the night. During the storm."

"Where did he get him?"

Thorne opened his eyes. They were terrified.

"He didn't say. But the boy... he had bruises. On his wrists. On his ankles. Like he'd been tied up."

Elena felt the room spin. Julian hadn't just been neglected. He had been a prisoner before he ever set foot in the manor.

"Who was he?" Elena asked. "Who was the boy?"

"I don't know," Thorne wept. "I just signed the papers. I certified the birth. I made him Julian."

"And the first baby?" Elena asked. "Where is he?"

Thorne pointed a shaking finger at the window. Toward the distant lights of the town.

"The lake," he whispered. "Vane took him to the lake. He said water washes away sins."

The door behind Elena clicked.

She spun around.

The lock engaged with a heavy, mechanical thud.

It wasn't Vane.

Standing by the door, holding a key card, was a nurse. She wasn't smiling. She held a syringe in her hand.

"Visitor hours are over, Mrs. Hawthorne," she said.

Elena looked at the syringe. It wasn't insulin. It was a sedative. Or worse.

The nurse moved toward her.

"Mr. Vane said you might be distressed," the nurse said, her voice calm, professional. "He authorized a sedative. For your own good."

Elena backed up against the bed. She looked at Thorne. He had pulled the covers over his head, hiding from the monster he had helped create.

She was trapped. Alone with the man who signed the lie, and the woman paid to enforce it.