The officers found Dana's car in the hospital parking garage — level three, the same garage where I'd cried on the phone with Bethany months earlier. Dana wasn't in it. She'd disabled her GPS monitor — cut it off, which was itself a felony — and walked into the children's hospital.
Security found her on the oncology floor at 6:40 a.m., standing outside Lily's room, staring through the window at my sleeping daughter.
I wasn't there — I'd fallen asleep in the lounge — but the night nurse was, and she hit the panic button. By the time I ran down the hall, hospital security had Dana against the wall, and two Murfreesboro police officers were putting her in handcuffs for the second time in twelve hours.
"What were you going to do?" I screamed at her in that hallway, past all professionalism, past all strategy. "She's nine years old! She's got cancer! What were you going to do to my baby?"
Dana looked at me with eyes that were completely empty. "I just wanted to see her," she said. "I just wanted to say goodbye to my niece."
"You're lying."
"Am I?" She smiled, and it was the most terrifying thing I'd ever seen. "You'll never know, will you?"
They took her away. Bail revoked. No second chances. Foster called me an hour later. "She's in federal holding now. No bail this time. The judge saw the hospital security footage and the text message. Megan, I'm going to be honest — if she hadn't been stopped, I don't know what she would have done. And I don't want to think about it."
Neither did I. I sat with Lily all day, watching her sleep off the gala excitement, and every time a nurse came in, I startled. Rachel arranged for a security guard outside Lily's room — off-duty police, paid for by the victim's assistance fund. I hated that my daughter needed a guard. I hated that Dana had brought this into a children's hospital.
Tom called that afternoon. "The kids are with your mom," he said. "I filed for divorce this morning."
"Tom — "
"Don't. Don't tell me to think about it. I watched the bank footage, Megan. I watched my wife sign your name forty-one times. I watched her laugh in a parking lot while you were putting a port in Lily's chest." His voice was steady, which scared me more than tears would have. "She went to Lily's room, Megan. Whatever she was going to do — I can't unknow that. It's over."
"I'm sorry."
"I'm the one who's sorry. For all of it." He paused. "The kids want to see you. And Lily. When things calm down. Is that okay?"
"That's more than okay. Tell them Aunt Megan loves them."
After he hung up, I sat there thinking about Tom's kids — twelve and ten, old enough to understand that their mother was in federal holding, young enough to be shattered by it. Collateral damage. Dana hadn't just stolen money. She'd stolen her own children's mother.
My phone buzzed. Agent Reyes: "Mrs. Torres, we need to talk about Gary Whitman and Linda Voss. Things are moving fast."
I texted back: "I'm here. What happened?"
Her reply made my blood run cold: "Whitman ran. His office is empty, his house is empty, his phone is off. We think he's heading for the state line."
