Chapter 264

“We… we don’t know, sir. Charla said she took her for a walk…”

“Charla took her?” Hilliard seized the guard by the lapels and slammed him into the wall. “You let that woman walk out with my daughter?”

“She had a pass! She said Mrs. Holloway sent her!”

Hilliard shoved the guard aside.

“Find her,” he whispered. His voice was trembling — not with grief, but with a rage quiet enough to burn the world to the ground. “If she has so much as a scratch on her, I will kill you all.”

“Security! Now!”

Hilliard kicked open the door to the hospital’s main security hub. The guards inside scrambled to their feet.

“Pull up the cameras for the pediatric wing. Last thirty minutes.”

The screens flickered to life.

There was Charla, walking into the room. Smiling.

Ten minutes later, she walked back out alone. Her expression had shifted — sorrowful now, practiced. She raised a hand to her face and wiped away a tear that wasn’t there.

Five minutes after that, a small figure slipped out of the same room.

Elia.

She looked terrified. She was hugging the wall, glancing over her shoulder with every step.

“Where is she going?” Hilliard leaned closer to the screen.

Elia bypassed the exit. She moved to the service elevator bank at the far end of the hall, stretched up on her tiptoes, and pressed a button.

“Zoom in,” Hilliard ordered.

The image was grainy, but the illuminated floor indicator was unmistakable. B2.

“What’s on B2?” Hilliard asked the security chief.

The chief swallowed. “The morgue, sir. And the incinerator room.”

The blood drained from Hilliard’s face.

The morgue.

“Why would she go to the morgue?” Gavin asked.

“Because someone told her to,” Hilliard said. “Someone told her that her mother was dead.” He turned sharply. “Lock down B2. Nobody in or out.”

He ran into the hallway.

Ahead, near the elevators, he spotted a small group. Jeraldine. And Charla.

Charla was pressing a tissue to her nose, her face arranged into an expression of helpless distress.

“I just don’t know where she went,” she was saying to Jeraldine. “I turned my back for one second…”

Hilliard didn’t slow down.

“Hilliard?” Jeraldine caught sight of him. “Hilliard, you’re bleeding — what happened?”

He ignored his mother entirely. He walked straight up to Charla.

Charla looked up, her eyes widening. “Hilliard, thank God. That poor child ran off and I—”

Hilliard’s hand shot out.

He grabbed Charla by the throat.

He didn’t simply grab her — he slammed her backward into the wall with enough force to crack the plaster, and lifted her clean off her feet.

“Hilliard!” Jeraldine screamed.

Charla clawed at his hand, legs kicking uselessly in the air. Her face went red, then deepened toward purple.

“What did you tell her?” Hilliard snarled, his face inches from hers. “What did you tell my daughter?”

Charla couldn’t speak. She gagged, her eyes bulging wide.

“Did you send her to the morgue?” His grip tightened. “Did you send her to die in the dark?”