Chapter 3 - The Ghost from 2004
“Who... are you?” the woman whispered, her voice barely carrying over the hum of the oxygen monitor.
Cameron took a step closer to the bed. The high-powered executive who could silence a room of sixty shareholders with a single glance felt his breath catch in his throat.
“My name is Cameron,” he said softly. “You collapsed at Gate 47. Hope brought me to you.”
The woman squeezed her eyes shut as a tear slipped through her dark lashes, tracing a wet path down her hollow cheek. “I’m sorry... I’m so sorry. The tickets... I had to get her to Florida... my mother...”
“Don't apologize,” Cameron said, his voice dropping into a tone so gentle his own personal assistants would not have recognized it. “You’re at Mercy General. You’re safe. Your daughter is safe.”
“I can’t... pay for this,” she choked out, trying to push herself up on one elbow. “I don't have insurance. I don't—”
“It’s taken care of,” Cameron interrupted firmly, laying a hand gently on her shoulder to keep her lying down. “Don't think about money. Don't think about anything except breathing.”
Dr. Harrison stepped in. “Miss, you need to rest. We’re moving you to the ICU on the fifth floor.”
As the nurses prepped the bed for transport, Cameron walked out into the hallway, pulling his personal assistant’s direct line up on his phone.
The call was answered on the first ring.
“Cameron!” Marcus’s panicked voice blasted through the speaker. “Where are you? Arthur Vance is threatening to pull the entire forty-million-dollar deal off the table! The Tokyo delegation thinks you’ve been kidnapped!”
“Marcus,” Cameron said, his voice as cold and clear as mountain water. “Cancel the Tokyo trip.”
Silence on the line. Three full seconds of dead air.
“...What?” Marcus stammered.
“Cancel the Tokyo trip,” Cameron repeated. “Issue a press release stating that West Global is delaying the Asia-Pacific merger due to an internal restructuring.”
“Cameron, are you insane? That deal took eighteen months to build!”
“I don't care if it took eighteen years,” Cameron said softly, looking through the glass window at the small girl in the red dress who was holding her mother’s hand as the bed was rolled toward the elevators. “I need you to pull up a background check immediately.”
“For who?”
“A woman brought into Mercy General from Terminal B an hour ago,” Cameron said. “She was carrying two Southwest tickets to Orlando. Her first name is unknown, but her daughter’s name is Hope.”
Marcus groaned. “Cameron, you missed a forty-million-dollar flight for a random stranger at an airport?”
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Cameron paused, his thumb tracing the cold metal of his wristwatch.
“She’s not a stranger, Marcus,” Cameron whispered, his eyes fixed on the retreating elevator doors. “Find out who she is. And find out why she was hiding in Terminal B with nothing but the clothes on her back.”
