CHAPTER 4 — THE FIRE WASN'T AN ACCIDENT
CHAPTER 4 — THE FIRE WASN'T AN ACCIDENT
The next morning, Michael arrived at the hospital before sunrise.
Two police officers stood outside Noah's room.
Detective Brooks was waiting.
"We have another problem."
Michael immediately sensed bad news.
"What happened?"
She handed him a tablet.
"Look."
Hospital security footage from 3:12 a.m.
A man dressed as a maintenance worker entered the pediatric wing.
He carried a toolbox.
He stopped outside Noah's room.
Looked both directions.
Then quietly reached for the oxygen line.
A nurse appeared unexpectedly around the corner.
The man walked away before anyone noticed.
Detective Brooks paused the video.
"He disappeared before security could catch him."
Michael's jaw tightened.
"They're trying to finish what they started."
Grace overheard every word.
She wrapped herself protectively around Noah's incubator.
"They found us."
Tears streamed down her face.
"I told you they'd never stop."
Michael looked at the sleeping infant.
Noah's tiny chest rose and fell beneath Kelly's bright red scarf.
Someone wanted this child dead.
And they were willing to enter a hospital to do it.
Later that afternoon Detective Brooks received a phone call.
She turned toward Michael.
"We reopened the investigation into Grace's mother's fire."
"And?"
"The fire department discovered something that was overlooked."
She placed several photographs on the table.
The electrical panel had been cut manually.
Gasoline residue had been found beneath the kitchen floor.
It had never been an accident.
It had been murder.
Grace covered her mouth.
"My mother..."
The detective nodded sadly.
"We believe she discovered whatever Project AURORA really is."
Grace began shaking uncontrollably.
"My husband tried to warn me."
"What did he say?" Michael asked.
"He told me that if anything happened to him..."
"...I should never let David find Noah."
Michael frowned.
"Why Noah?"
Grace closed her eyes.
"My husband said..."
"'The baby is the only witness who can't talk yet.'"
The room fell silent.
Michael struggled to understand.
"A baby can't witness anything."
Grace slowly looked at him.
"My husband wasn't talking about what Noah saw."
"He meant..."
"What Noah is."
Before she could explain, alarms suddenly erupted throughout the hospital.
Doctors and nurses rushed into the hallway.
Smoke poured from the electrical room at the end of the corridor.
People began evacuating patients.
Michael grabbed Kelly, who had just arrived with Teddy and the red scarf she'd insisted on bringing back after it was washed.
Grace instinctively reached for Noah's incubator.
Then every light went out.
Darkness swallowed the floor.
Only emergency lights glowed red.
In that crimson haze, Michael saw a shadow moving toward Noah's room.
Someone had planned the blackout.
Someone had been waiting for this exact moment.
And this time...
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They weren't coming to scare Grace.
They were coming to take Noah.
