Chapter 3 - The Woman in the White Room
The helicopter blades beat rhythmically against the low gray autumn clouds as we landed on the cracked tarmac outside Scranton.
St. Jude’s Hospice was a bleak brick structure surrounded by bare maple trees and rusted chain-link fences.
The interior smelled of rubbing alcohol, stale industrial floor cleaner, and the quiet, heavy finality of dying people.
Sister Beatrice, an elderly nun in a faded habit, led me down the linoleum corridor toward room fourteen.
"She has been calling for you, Mr. Thorne," the sister murmured softly, crossing herself as she opened the door.
"She held on just long enough to make sure her little girl reached the city safely."
The woman lying in the narrow iron cot bore almost no resemblance to the radiant, vibrant artist I had held in Paris five years ago.
Daisy’s cheekbones were sharp as knives beneath translucent, papery skin, her dark hair brittle and cropped short.
Her sunken eyes fluttered open at the sound of my footsteps, focusing slowly on my face through an oxygen mask.
"Alister..." she rasped, a faint, fragile whisper that tore straight through the armor I had spent four years constructing.
I dropped to my knees on the cold floor, gathering her frail, freezing hands into mine as tears blurred my vision.
"Daisy... God, Daisy, what happened to you? Why did you run? Why didn't you call me?"
A bitter, sorrowful tear slipped from the corner of her eye, soaking into the hospital pillow.
"I didn't run from you, my love," she whispered, her chest heaving with agonizing effort.
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"Your brother... Gordon... he brought men with guns to our studio four years ago."
"He said if I didn't sign the confession paper and vanish, he would make sure you died in a staged car accident."
