Chapter 4
Harrison read the threat twice.
Then he took Khloe’s phone and handed it to Detective Ortiz.
“I want protection outside her room.”
“I’ll arrange it.”
“That isn’t enough.”
“It’s what I can legally do right now.”
Khloe looked toward the neonatal unit down the hall.
“What about Hope?”
“We’ll place an officer near the entrance.”
Diane arrived carrying a bag of Khloe’s clothes.
When she learned Richard was free, all color left her face.
“He knows where we live.”
“You’re staying with me,” Harrison said.
“No. I’m staying here.”
Detective Ortiz asked Diane whether Richard had contacted her recently.
Diane hesitated.
“Yesterday morning.”
“What did he want?”
“He asked me to persuade Khloe to sign the financial agreement.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“No.”
But Khloe knew her mother’s face.
“Mom, tell the truth.”
Diane sat beside the bed.
“He said families can suffer terrible accidents when they refuse to cooperate.”
Harrison cursed under his breath.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I thought he was trying to frighten me.”
“He was.”
Diane opened her purse and removed an envelope.
“This came to my house after I left for the hospital.”
Inside was a photograph of Harrison standing outside his apartment.
A red circle had been drawn around his head.
Detective Ortiz immediately called for another officer.
“This is no longer just a domestic assault investigation.”
Khloe felt fear, but beneath it, something stronger was growing.
Rage.
Richard had counted on her being ashamed.
He had isolated her from friends, controlled her money, and convinced her that every argument was her fault.
Now he was trying to terrify her into silence.
“He has documents in a storage unit,” Khloe said.
Harrison looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“Last year, I found a key in his jacket. He said it belonged to his office, but the tag had an address in Queens.”
“Do you remember the address?”
“Yes.”
Ortiz checked the number.
“The unit is rented under a corporation owned by Vanessa.”
She left to request a search warrant.
That evening, Khloe sat beside Hope’s incubator.
The baby’s breathing had improved, but she still needed support.
Khloe whispered stories to her.
She described the bedroom waiting at home.
The yellow curtains.
The wooden crib Harrison had assembled.
The small silver stars Diane had painted across the wall.
“You’re going to see it,” Khloe promised. “We’re both going home.”
A shadow moved beyond the nursery doors.
Khloe looked up.
A man wearing hospital scrubs entered with his face lowered.
He walked past the nurses’ station.
Something about him felt wrong.
He had no identification badge.
He moved directly toward Hope’s incubator.
Khloe stood despite the pain.
“Excuse me.”
The man did not stop.
He reached inside his pocket.
Khloe screamed.
A nurse turned.
The man pulled out a syringe.
Harrison came through the opposite doorway and tackled him before he reached the incubator.
The syringe rolled across the floor.
Security officers surrounded them.
The man fought wildly, shouting that he had made a mistake.
Police found five thousand dollars in cash inside his backpack.
Detective Ortiz arrived minutes later.
Under questioning, the man claimed a stranger had hired him to enter the hospital and frighten Khloe.
But the syringe contained potassium chloride.
Injected into Hope’s IV, it could have stopped her heart.
Harrison stood outside Khloe’s room, shaking with fury.
Richard had crossed another line.
This time, there was no room for doubt.
Ortiz examined the man’s phone.
One deleted message had been recovered.
The sender had written only six words.
Make the child disappear before midnight.
The number belonged to a prepaid phone.
May you like
But surveillance video from a nearby store showed who had purchased it.
Vanessa’s younger sister, Natalie.
