Then he looked at the bag.
“And after seeing this, I think you need to know what happened.”
Inside was a gold ring.
The second I saw it, I stopped breathing.
Thin band.
Three tiny diamonds.
A pale blue center stone.
One bent prong near the setting.
I knew every scratch.
Every flaw.
Every detail.
Because I had spent four months staring at photographs of that ring.
It belonged to my mother.
She had worn it every day for twenty-three years.
She wore it while cooking.
While sleeping.
While showering.
When Mom disappeared, almost everything valuable had been left at home.
Her jewelry.
Her purse.
Her belongings.
But that ring was missing.
Jett looked at my face.
“You recognize it.”
I nodded.
Of course he knew about it.
I had shown photographs of my mother and that ring to almost everyone I worked with.
I grabbed the bag.
The couple from the night before had somehow possessed the one object Mom was wearing when she vanished.
My mind immediately went somewhere terrible.
If they had the ring, they knew something about her.
Maybe they knew exactly where she was.
Jett opened his office and pulled up the restaurant security footage.
We watched table twelve.
At first, everything looked ordinary.
Then the woman opened her purse.
She searched around inside and pulled something out.
As she withdrew her hand, a tiny object caught against the purse clasp.
The ring.
It slipped from her fingers.
Neither of them noticed.
It landed on the seat, rolled toward the wall, and disappeared into the narrow gap behind the booth.
“That’s how it got there,” Jett whispered.
Then something else happened.
The husband’s phone lit up.
He answered.
Whatever the person on the other end said made him go completely still.
He turned the phone toward his wife.
Her hand flew to her mouth.
They stood so quickly that she knocked the chair sideways.
He grabbed her purse and coat.
Then they rushed out.
The bill was still sitting on the table.
That was when I understood.
“They weren’t running away from the check.”
Jett looked at me.
“No.”
I was already heading toward the employee lounge.
The valet working that morning hadn’t been on duty the night before, but Jett found the man who had been.
“Do you remember that couple from table twelve?” I asked.
He nodded.
“They were in a hurry.”
“Did they say where they were going?”
He thought for a moment.
“The husband told me to get their car immediately.”
Then he frowned.
“He was on the phone. I heard him say something like, ‘Call the hospital. Tell them we’re coming.’”
Hospital.
My heart started racing.
Jett grabbed his keys.
“I’m coming with you.”
“No.”
“Laura, you have no idea who these people are.”
“That’s exactly why I have to go.”
For four months, I had waited.
Waited for police.
Waited for phone calls.
Waited for someone to recognize my mother.
Waited for another person to find the clue I couldn’t find myself.
Waiting had done nothing.
I slipped the ring into my pocket.
This time, I was going.
I reached the hospital in about twelve minutes.
I ran from the parking lot toward reception with the plastic bag clenched in my hand.
A receptionist in blue scrubs looked up.
“I’m trying to find my mother.”
I pulled one of the missing-person flyers from my bag.
Her photograph was worn from being folded and unfolded so many times.
“Her name is Evelyn Mercer. She disappeared four months ago.”
The receptionist looked at the photograph.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t provide patient information.”
“Please.”
I held up the ring.
“She was wearing this when she disappeared. Last night, two people had it at the restaurant where I work. They left suddenly and came here.”
Her expression changed.
She looked at the poster again.
Then she started typing.
“What did they look like?”
I described the couple.
Seconds passed.
They felt like hours.
Finally, she shook her head.
“There’s nobody registered under Evelyn Mercer.”
My hope collapsed.
Then she stopped.
“Wait.”
She typed again.
Her expression became more serious.
“There is an unidentified woman.”
I stepped closer.
“What?”
“She was admitted several weeks ago. She was confused when she arrived and couldn’t tell anyone her name. She was later transferred to neurological care.”
My heart began pounding.
“Does she look like this?”
The receptionist studied Mom’s picture.
“I can’t confirm that from here.”
Then she softened.
“But the age and general description are similar.”
“That’s her.”
I knew it.
I don’t know how.
I just knew.
Then the receptionist said something that made the situation even more urgent.
“The patient suffered a seizure yesterday. She’s stable now, but she isn’t really supposed to have visitors.”
“I’m her daughter.”
She hesitated.
“She already has two people with her.”
The couple.
My mind filled with every nightmare I had been trying not to imagine.
They had my mother’s ring.
They knew where she was.
And now they were sitting beside her hospital bed.
“You don’t understand,” I said. “Those people may have done something to her.”
The receptionist looked toward security.
I lowered my voice.
“Please. Let me see her. If I’m wrong, I’ll leave immediately. But if that woman is my mother…”
I couldn’t finish.
After a moment, she picked up the phone.
She spoke quietly to someone upstairs.
Then she printed a visitor badge.
“Third floor. Room 318. A nurse will meet you.”