Chapter 4 - The Hunt In The Dark
Across town at the Costa Shipping corporate tower, midnight brought no sleep.
Arthur stood before a massive digital wall displaying real-time tracking feeds from private investigators, transit cameras, and cell tower pings across the Midwest.
Dante stood behind him, flipping through printouts of Clara’s financial transactions.
"Her phone was powered down at 7:22 PM," Dante reported, his tone strictly professional.
"We pulled the security tapes from Union Station. She purchased a one-way coach ticket to Omaha on the 8:15 California Zephyr."
Arthur spun around, his eyes bloodshot, his tie ripped off and discarded on the floor.
"Did she board the train? Did you intercept the train in Galesburg?"
"The train was searched by local deputies when it pulled into Iowa," Dante answered cautiously.
"She wasn't on it, Arthur. Her seat remained empty."
Arthur’s heart skipped a heavy, sickening beat.
"What do you mean she wasn't on it? Where did she go?"
Dante hesitated, looking down at an incident blotter from the Chicago Transit Authority.
"There was a medical emergency in the Great Hall at 7:45 PM," Dante said, his voice dropping into grave seriousness.
"A pregnant woman went into active labor near the ticketing gates. Paramedics responded with an ambulance."
Arthur felt the room tilt beneath his feet.
The air rushed from his lungs as if he had been struck with an iron timber.
Active labor.
She had been having contractions in his office.
She had stood before his desk, clutching her abdomen, begging him to leave his paperwork and drive her to the hospital.
And he had looked at the woman carrying his blood, told her she was a convenient incubator making a fuss, and returned to his shipping manifests.
"Which hospital?" Arthur choked out, his hands slamming down onto the conference table with enough force to splinter the walnut veneer.
"Which damn hospital, Dante?"
"We called Northwestern, Rush, and University of Chicago," Dante said, shaking his head.
"None of them have a patient registered under Clara Costa."
"Search private clinics! Search community hospitals! Search every basement clinic in this godforsaken state!" Arthur roared, tears of sheer, agonizing terror finally breaking through his arrogant mask.
"If anything happens to my wife... if anything happens to my child..."
"Arthur," Dante interrupted gently, stepping forward.
"Clara left her wedding rings. She cut up your credit cards. If she went to a hospital, she didn't use your name. She went in as a ghost."
Arthur slumped into an executive leather chair, burying his face in his large, trembling hands.
The multibillion-dollar empire, the seventy cargo freighters crossing the Pacific, the high-society connections, and the private jets were utterly useless.
All the wealth in the western hemisphere couldn't buy back the twenty minutes he had wasted insulting his wife while her body was breaking down.
"She was terrified, Dante," Arthur whispered into his palms, his voice cracking into jagged, broken sobs.
"She looked at me and said our baby was dying. And I called her an incubator."
Dante looked at his boss, offering no comfort, because some sins were too heavy for polite lies.
May you like
"Then pray she found a good doctor, Arthur," Dante said quietly.
"Because right now, you are the last person on earth Clara Costa ever wants to see."
