Part 2 — The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Gone
Eleanor survived the first several hours. Doctors stabilized her and moved her to a private recovery room.
Leo eventually fell asleep on a small cot beside her bed, still holding the battered blue car against his chest.
I remained in the room. I told myself I was waiting because Eleanor might know what happened to my parents. But that wasn’t the whole truth. I couldn’t leave Leo. Every time I looked at him, I saw the frightened child I had once been.
Near midnight, Dr. Harrison, the hospital’s chief toxicologist, entered. He closed the door behind him.
“Mr. Vance, we completed Ms. Cross’s blood work.”
Something in his face told me I wasn’t going to like what came next.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s been poisoned.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Her symptoms initially resembled severe malnutrition and organ stress. But the toxicology results are clear. She has been exposed repeatedly to an arsenic-based industrial compound.”
“How?”
“That’s the troubling part.” He lowered his voice. “This wasn’t one large dose. Someone has been giving her very small quantities over a period of months.”
I looked toward Eleanor.
“Someone has been trying to kill her slowly?”
Dr. Harrison nodded.
“If Leo hadn’t found help today, she probably wouldn’t have survived another two days.”
My stomach tightened.
Twelve years in hiding. Then deliberate poisoning. And suddenly Eleanor resurfaced on the exact anniversary of my parents’ deaths.
My phone rang. The name on the display made me hesitate.
Marcus Vance.
My father’s older cousin, though I had always called him Uncle Marcus.
After my parents died, Marcus had become my mentor. He taught me how to deal with investors. He introduced me to board members. He helped me navigate the company when I was too young and grief-stricken to understand what half the paperwork meant.
Recently, however, our relationship had become strained. Marcus wanted Vance Gastronomy merged with an enormous offshore conglomerate. I didn’t. The deal would make everyone rich, but the Vance company would effectively cease to exist.
I answered.
“Julian.”
His familiar voice sounded almost paternal.
“I heard you missed the investor presentation.”
“I had an emergency.”
“Yes. Apparently you brought a homeless woman and her child into Mercy General.”
I looked at Eleanor.
“How did you hear about that?”
A pause.
“People talk. You’re a public figure.”
Something about his answer disturbed me.
Marcus continued.
“The merger vote is approaching. You cannot afford distractions now.”
“A woman nearly died.”
“Then let the hospital handle her.”
His voice hardened slightly.
“You have responsibilities, Julian.”
“So do I.”
“To shareholders.”
“To people.”
Another pause. Then Marcus said quietly, “Do not allow sentimentality to destroy everything your father built.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“You don’t need to remind me about my father.”
I ended the call.
For several minutes, I stood beside the window. Then I looked at the date displayed on my phone.
March 15.
Suddenly I noticed something I had somehow overlooked. Marcus had scheduled the final merger proceedings around the anniversary of my parents’ crash. And Eleanor Cross—the one person my father had wanted me to find—had reappeared on the same date.
I stayed that night.
At 3:15 in the morning, the hallway outside Eleanor’s room grew strangely quiet. The hospital lights flickered once.
Then I saw a man approaching.
Blue scrubs. Surgical mask. Nothing obviously unusual. Except he had no chart. No badge that I could see. And he walked like a man who already knew exactly where he was going.
I stepped beside the door. He entered. Instead of checking the monitors, he moved directly toward Eleanor’s IV. From his pocket, he withdrew a syringe.
My entire body went cold.
“Step away from her.”
He spun. For half a second, we stared at each other. Then he dropped the syringe and reached beneath his scrubs.
A knife flashed. He lunged.
I moved sideways and caught his wrist. We crashed into the metal railing beside Eleanor’s bed.
Leo woke screaming.
The attacker tried to drive the knife toward me again. I slammed his wrist against the bed frame. Once. Twice. The knife fell.
I hit him hard across the jaw. He stumbled backward, grabbed a metal tray, and threw it toward me. I raised my arm instinctively. By the time I recovered, he was running.
I chased him into the corridor. He disappeared through the emergency stairwell before security arrived.
When I returned, Leo was crying beside his mother.
I knelt.
“It’s okay. You’re safe.”
I wasn’t sure whether I believed my own words.
Then I noticed something on the floor. A small black phone. The attacker must have dropped it.
The screen illuminated. A message appeared.
Finish it tonight. Julian Vance loses everything tomorrow anyway.
I read it twice. Then a third time.
Someone wasn’t merely trying to kill Eleanor. They knew who I was. And whatever had started twelve years ago was no longer buried in the past.
It had come back for all of us.
