Chapter 3 - THE RIDE TO THE PAST
The back of the black town car smelled of aged leather, rain-dampened wool, and expensive cedarwood air freshener. It was a space designed for silence, concentration, and multi-million-dollar phone calls.
Today, it was filled with a suffocating, electric tension.
Annie sat on the edge of the plush leather seat, her small backpack clutched tightly in her lap like a shield. She tried hard not to touch anything, acutely aware that her wet hoodie was leaving a damp patch on the upholstery that cost more than everything her family had owned combined.
Across from her sat Ethan Whitmore.
He hadn't spoken a single word since they left the lobby of Whitmore Tower. He had dismissed his driver, taking the wheel himself for the first two blocks before Mason insisted on driving so Ethan could focus on what mattered. Now, in the back seat, Ethan held the plain white envelope between his fingers.
He hadn't opened it yet.
It lay there like a ticking time bomb, bound by cheap paper and old secrets.
“What’s your name again?” Ethan asked suddenly, breaking the heavy silence as the car wove through the congested Atlanta traffic, wipers beating a frantic rhythm against the windshield.
“Annie,” she said, her voice small. “Annie Carter.”
“Where are your parents, Annie?”
“My dad works the night shift at the shipping yard down by the docks. My mom... she died when I was six.” Ethan’s eyes flickered toward her, a shadow of empathy passing behind the cold gray steel. “And how did you come to be running errands for a dying woman in a hospice ward?”
“My grandmother volunteers there on weekends,” Annie explained, staring down at her worn sneakers. “I go with her to help hand out juice cups and read magazines to the people who don’t get visitors. Miss Margaret... she didn't have anyone. No husband, no friends, just an old radio that only plays static and a box of saltines. Last week, she dropped her water pitcher, and I helped her clean it up. After that, she started talking to me.”
“What did she tell you?” Ethan’s voice was barely a murmur, tight and strained.
“She didn't talk much about her past,” Annie said softly. “She mostly talked about a little boy named Ethan. She told me he had hair the color of wheat straw and laughed when the sprinklers came on in the summer. She said he loved toy trains with blue wheels.”
Ethan’s breath hitched. He closed his eyes for a second, his fingers tightening around the envelope until the paper crinkled.
A blue-wheeled toy train.
He hadn't thought about that train in thirty-five years. It was buried in a cardboard box in some forgotten storage locker, a relic of a childhood he had systematically scrubbed clean of sentimentality. How could a dying stranger in a charity ward know about the blue wheels? His mother hadn't been around when he played with it—or so he had always been told.
“She’s lying in a room that smells like bleach and old cabbage,” Ethan muttered, almost to himself. “For thirty-eight years, I believed she was living in luxury in California, spending my father’s settlement money on champagne and gambling debts.”
“She doesn't have money, Mr. Whitmore,” Annie said, her voice surprisingly firm for a twelve-year-old. “Her room has two chairs, a bed that squeaks, and a window that doesn't lock. When I brought her an orange yesterday, she cried because she said it tasted like sunshine.”
Ethan turned his head sharply, staring out the rain-streaked window as the sleek skyscrapers of downtown Atlanta gave way to the decaying brick warehouses and faded storefronts of the city’s industrial east side.
St. Jude’s Hospice was not a place where miracles happened; it was a place where people went to wait for the end of the line. The building was an aging three-story brick structure with peeling white paint and a flickering neon sign above the entrance that buzzed monotonously in the gray afternoon light.
The town car pulled up to the curb with a smooth hiss of brakes.
Mason killed the engine and turned around from the front seat. “Mr. Whitmore, do you want me to come inside with you?”
“No,” Ethan said instantly, his voice freezing any further discussion. “Stay in the car. Keep the engine running.”
Ethan opened the door and stepped out into the pouring rain. He didn't bother grabbing an umbrella from the floor mat; the cold water soaked through his tailored suit within seconds, plastering his dark hair to his forehead.
Annie scrambled out after him, pulling her hood up. “Wait! Room 412 is on the top floor. The elevator is usually broken, so you have to take the stairs!”
Ethan didn't care about the stairs. He marched through the heavy glass doors of the hospice, his long strides leaving wet footprints across the linoleum floor.
The reception desk was empty, a half-eaten tuna sandwich sitting beside an ancient desktop computer. Down the hallway, the smell of antiseptic, boiled potatoes, and quiet despair hung heavy in the air. A television muttered somewhere in a communal lounge, playing a daytime game show to an audience of empty chairs.
Ethan ignored the nurse who poked her head out of a supply closet with a confused, startled expression. He walked straight to the stairwell, his heart hammering against his ribs in a rhythm he hadn't felt since he was a frightened little boy hiding in a closet.
Up one flight.
Then two.
Then three.
By the time he reached the fourth floor, his breathing was heavy, not from exertion, but from a strange, terrifying sense of anticipation. He pushed open the heavy fire door and stepped into the quiet ward.
The walls here were painted a sickly shade of institutional green. The doors had small rectangular glass windows through which patients could be seen—frail, skeletal figures tangled in white cotton sheets, staring blankly at the ceiling.
Annie hurried past him, her boots squeaking softly on the floor. She led him down the narrow corridor, stopping in front of a door marked with a peeling paper sign: 412.
The door was cracked open an inch.
From inside came the sound of labored, rattling breathing—the sound of a machine running out of fuel.
Annie gently pushed the door open wider and stepped aside.
May you like
“Mr. Whitmore,” she whispered, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “Here she is.”
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