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REN

Roanoke, Virginia

R en stood in the hall outside Stella’s room.

Stella Keen. He had found the solution to questions he had never asked.

Where, how, who, what—the answer was Stella.

He loved her. Nothing else mattered. The clarity of the realization shocked Ren.

There was no list to make, no formula to crack—the simplicity of it all amazed him.

He loved her, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do to make Stella happy and whole.

He entered the room with renewed energy.

Ren wasn’t sure how to say what he wanted but hoped the words would come.

A sleeping woman occupied the first bed in the room.

Careful not to wake her, Ren walked around the foot of the bed, past the woman’s open suitcase, and pulled the curtain dividing the room.

When Ren saw the empty bed, he assumed Stella had been taken for more tests. So, he grabbed the chair against the wall and moved it to her bedside. Then he noticed the heart and respiratory monitors stretched across the curtain and attached to the sleeping patient in the next bed.

Ren shot to his feet and scanned the space more thoroughly.

The woman’s open suitcase had been rifled through; no shoes were in the bag, and clothes appeared to be missing.

Out in the hall, Ren looked left and right, then sprinted for the stairwell.

He pushed open the heavy fire door. The only sound was the echo of his footsteps on the concrete.

He stopped on the next landing and sat on the bottom step.

Stella was gone.