A small voice broke the silence: “Dad… my little sister won’t wake up. We’re so hungry.” Without a second thought, he grabbed them and rushed to the hospital. But what he learned there about their mother would change everything… – Page 2

While sprinting down the corridor toward the elevator, I dialed Delaney.

Straight to voicemail.

I slammed my palm against the elevator button and called again.

Voicemail.

A cold, metallic dread began to coat the back of my throat. By the time I reached the concrete belly of the parking garage, my pulse was hammering against my ribs with the force of a trapped bird. My hands shook so badly I scratched the door of my sedan trying to get the key in.

Earlier that week, Delaney had texted me a breezy message saying she was taking the kids to a friend’s lake cabin. Service would be spotty, she’d said. Because we were in the middle of our carefully choreographed custody rotation, and because our co-parenting had been a tense but functioning truce for eight months, I had believed her. I had enjoyed three days of quiet. Three days of focusing on work.

Now, as I tore out of the garage, tires screaming against the asphalt, all I could hear was Micah’s thin, hollow voice. We don’t have anything left to eat.

I called Delaney one last time, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles turned absolute white. “Pick up,” I hissed at the windshield, swerving around a stalled delivery truck. “Damn it, Delaney, pick up the phone.”

She didn’t.