The next two hours were a waking nightmare. I paced the floor, gave my insurance information, and then found myself sitting in a cramped, windowless office with a hospital social worker. Her name was Sarah, a composed woman with silver-rimmed glasses and a notepad balanced on her knee.
I told her everything. The custody arrangement. Delaney’s text about the lake house. The empty kitchen. The crust in the cup.
“Do you have any idea where their mother is?” Sarah asked, her pen pausing.
“No,” I said flatly, the anger finally beginning to overtake the panic. “I haven’t heard her voice since Friday. She lied to me.”
“Are you prepared to take temporary full, emergency custody of both children while the state investigates this neglect?”
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “I will burn the world down before I let them go back to that house.”
Before Sarah could reply, a doctor tapped on the glass door and stepped in. He looked exhausted, but the tight lines around his mouth had softened. “Mr. Mercer? Elsie is stable.”
I dropped my head into my hands, a jagged breath tearing out of my lungs.
“She was severely dehydrated and battling a nasty gastrointestinal infection,” the doctor explained. “It escalated rapidly because her body had no fuel to fight it. We’ve got her on aggressive IV fluids and broad-spectrum antibiotics. She’s sleeping naturally now. You got her here just in time.”
I nodded, unable to speak. I walked back to Micah, who was gnawing on a graham cracker a nurse had given him. “She’s okay,” I whispered to him.
He slumped against me, the tension finally leaving his tiny frame.
Just as I let myself believe the worst was over, the charge nurse approached me. Her face was unreadable. “Mr. Mercer? Can you step out here for a moment?”
I followed her into the hallway.
“We ran a routine family notification trace,” she said softly. “Another hospital flagged the mother’s information. Your ex-wife was admitted to Nashville General very early Saturday morning.”
My blood ran cold. “Admitted? For what?”
“She was in a severe car accident,” the nurse said. “She came in as a Jane Doe. Unconscious. The man driving the vehicle fled the scene on foot before paramedics arrived.”
Chapter 4: The Weight of the Truth
I stared at the nurse, the buzzing of the fluorescent lights suddenly deafening in my ears.
An accident.
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