Chapter 7 - THE HOSPITAL THAT HAD NO PATIENTS
Z
The private medical facility stood outside New Haven, Connecticut.
Its buildings had been sold twice since Leo's disappearance.
The original operator had gone bankrupt.
Former employees were scattered across several states.
And the patient records were incomplete.
Derek wanted to drive there himself.
His attorney advised him to let investigators coordinate interviews and evidence collection.
For once, Derek listened.
A former nurse named Margaret Hale eventually came forward.
She remembered a young man brought to the facility under a false name.
He had dark hair.
A fractured rib.
And a distinctive scar across his right shoulder.
Leo had that scar.
Derek remembered how he got it.
A childhood fall from a tree.
Leo was eleven.
Derek was fourteen.
Their father blamed Derek for letting him climb too high.
Leo spent the next month proudly telling everyone the scar made him look dangerous.
Now the memory made Derek's throat close.
Margaret described the patient as frightened but alert.
“He kept asking whether someone named Derek knew he was there.”
Derek stared at the transcript.
“Did you answer him?”
The former nurse shook her head.
“I didn't know who Derek was.”
She continued.
“The patient was transferred after approximately three weeks. The records listed a rehabilitation facility, but the address was incomplete.”
“Did anyone accompany him?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“A woman.”
Derek looked up.
“Name?”
“Dr. Evelyn Mercer.”
The name meant nothing to him.
But Isabella reacted when he repeated it.
She went pale.
“Evelyn Mercer?”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes.
“That's the woman who helped me escape.”
Derek stared.
“From the house outside Philadelphia?”
Isabella nodded.
“She was working with a nonprofit medical outreach team. She found out I was being held there and reported it.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don't know.”
Investigators located Evelyn Mercer in Vermont.
She was sixty-one, a retired physician who had spent years assisting vulnerable patients in community clinics.
When contacted, she agreed to speak.
Her statement changed the investigation.
She confirmed treating a man matching Leo's description after his disappearance.
He had survived the injuries sustained during his captivity.
But he was frightened.
And he believed people connected to his father were searching for him.
Evelyn had helped arrange lawful medical and protective services through an advocacy network.
Leo eventually left the program.
She had no recent information about his location.
But she remembered one thing.
“He said he was going to finish what his brother didn't know he'd started.”
Derek stared.
“What did he mean?”
Evelyn shook her head.
“I never knew.”
That evening, Derek returned to New York.
He went straight to his brother's old apartment.
The place had been kept exactly as Leo left it.
A guitar leaned against the wall.
A pair of sneakers sat beside the couch.
And on the refrigerator hung a photograph of Leo with several children from the boxing gym.
Derek stood looking at it.
Then whispered, “You were alive.”
For five years, he'd believed the only thing left of Leo was memory.
Now he had to face the possibility that his brother had been somewhere in the world.
Afraid.
Alone.
And perhaps unwilling to return because Derek had spent years defending the people who hurt him.
He sat on the couch.
For the first time since their father's funeral, Derek Russo cried.
His phone rang.
An unknown number.
He stared.
Then answered.
A man's voice spoke.
“Derek?”
Derek stopped breathing.
The voice was older.
Rougher.
But familiar.
More familiar than his own.
He gripped the phone.
“Leo?”
Silence.
Then the man whispered:
“Don't trust Vincent. And don't let Isabella go back to the streets.”
Derek stood.
“Leo, where are you?”
A pause.
Then his brother said:
May you like
“I'm coming home.”
The line went dead.
