Written in 20 minutes. No time for typos or rereads.

Jason slammed the door closed behind him and sprinted to where Sonny was lying, just behind the sofa. He rolled him over—and was relieved to see Sonny’s eyes open, just slits of brown as sweat dribbled down his face.

“Sonny—” He dragged out his phone, intending to call 911 — this was more than he could handle and their resident doctor was missing in action.

Sonny’s hand weakly caught at his shirt and Jason paused to look at his former boss and friend. “Leave—” He panted, then coughed. He rolled on his side, continued coughing. “Have—to—go. Get out. Not—safe.”

“Sonny—”

“Eliza…” Sonny’s eyes drifted shut. “Not…safe.” He passed out, but was still breathing. Jason finally dialed 911, praying he wasn’t too late to get his answers.

—

Patrick shook his head. “Elizabeth—”

“Listen to me, Patrick.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. “Think back to what you just told me. You remember my daughter living for five hours. But her electronic records say she didn’t. The paper records don’t record her death. Another little girl died the same day. Who was it?”

Patrick stared down at the file in front of him, then sighed. “Do you remember Sam McCall?”

“Sam?” Elizabeth repeated. “Yeah. I—She…was one of Sonny’s mistresses—” She tipped her head. “I haven’t seen her in a while—”

“She moved after her daughter died.” Patrick swallowed. “Her daughter, born the same day Lily died.”

“But—her daughter was stillborn—”

“It must be a mix up.” Patrick closed the file, but Elizabeth took it from him before he could replace it in file. “Elizabeth—don’t—don’t do this. You know how paperwork can get mixed up. Nurse, doctors—we get busy. You have a photograph of your daughter. Steven took it. Do you think he’d lie to you—”

“He obviously did since he told me she was stillborn,” Elizabeth said. She closed her eyes. Oh, God, had her brother done this to her? “He was the one to tell me. He cried, too. He couldn’t—”

“He would never hurt you.” Patrick stared down at the file, then slowly nodded. “Let’s take this and Lily’s to my office. Somewhere safe where we can go over them and figure this out. If—if there’s a chance there was a switch—we need to figure this out—”

——

Just as they reached Patrick’s office, Elizabeth got a text on her phone—an alert from Jason telling her Sonny was being rushed to the hospital. She frowned at it, then called his line—but he didn’t answer.

“Patrick, I need to go down to the ER,” she told him. “Can—can you get started on looking at the files? Make copies. Scan them. Send them to me and to Justus.” She hesitated. “And Spinelli. He can be trusted. I don’t want anything to happen to them before we can look at them.”

“What’s wrong in the ER?”

“Sonny’s being rushed in—and no one’s been able to talk to him since Carly died.” She headed for the elevators.

—

She found Jason pacing the length of the small waiting room, back and forth from one line of chairs to another. He turned, frowning at her. “Hey. I was going to call you back—”

“What happened to Sonny?” Elizabeth demanded. “Is he hurt?”

“I don’t know. I came back from talking to Emily and he was in the penthouse,” Jason said. “Lying on the floor.” He lowered his voice, took her by the elbow and steered her over towards the corner. “He told me we needed to leave town. That it wasn’t safe.”

“Well, obviously—but—” Elizabeth bit her lip. “Jason, there’s something you need to know—Patrick talked to Steven three days ago. Or at least got a voice mail from him.”

“Three days—” Jason nodded. “So he’s still alive. Or was.”

“Exactly. Apparently, Steven’s been trying to track down Kelly. She resigned after Lily was born.” She looked at him, searching his eyes, praying he wouldn’t lie to her. “Jason, how did Lily die? What was her cause of death?”

“What?” He frowned at her. “You—you know. Steven told you. He told me—she was stillborn. The car bomb—I didn’t get you clear in time.” He swallowed hard. “I pushed you down too hard—”

“No—” Elizabeth touched his arm, the first gentleness she’d shown him since this had started. “No. Because Patrick just told me she was alive. He never—he never talked to me about it. Thought it would be painful. She was alive.”

“I—” Jason stepped back. Shook his head. “No—no, that’s not—that’s not what—How—”

“He said Kelly quit because she’d lost two babies. She blamed herself. I couldn’t see why—because we were both told the same thing. We both thought she died because of the bomb—”

“I don’t—” Jason clenched his fist. “I don’t understand.”

“The records don’t match. The electronic ones—they say she was stillborn, but Patrick and I just checked the paper records. Not only does Lily’s file say she was born alive—but it doesn’t have a record of her death.”

He stared at her for a long moment, but he wouldn’t say it. She knew it—it had been painful to say it outloud to put the wish out into the world. “And Steven was trying to track down Kelly.”

“Yes.”

Jason took out his cell phone and dialed. Without breaking eye contact, he said, “Justus, find an address for Kelly Lee. Now. Make sure it’s current.”

“Jason—”

“Mr. Morgan?”

They turned to see a doctor exiting one of the cubicle rooms. Elizabeth remembered him—Ian Devlin.

“Is Sonny okay?” Jason asked. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s been drugged. A potentially fatal overdose of Vicodin.” Ian looked at Elizabeth for a moment, then focused on Jason. “I’m sorry. He’s slipped into a coma and might never come out of it.”

+6