Chapter 12: The Hospital Line
For a few seconds after Ruiz said “St. Gabriel,” nobody moved.
Then the room filled with motion. An investigator reached for a radio. Ms. Patel started asking about the hospital liaison and the preservation request. Ruiz was already on the phone, giving short instructions that didn’t include a patient’s name or room number.
That mattered to me. In a hospital, one careless detail could travel farther than the person who meant well.
“Is Tommy still protected?” I asked.
Ruiz covered the phone’s microphone.
“The liaison is confirming his status now. We have officers at the hospital.”
“Then I want to go.”
Ms. Patel looked at me. “You don’t have to.”
“I know.” I turned toward Elena. “I’m not asking you to come.”
Elena’s fingers had curled around the strap of her bag. She looked toward the investigators, then at me.
“I’m staying here,” she said. “With Ms. Patel. That’s my choice.”
“Good,” I said. “Then stay.”
She held my gaze, steady despite the fear in her face. “Don’t let them turn you into a reason to do something reckless.”
“I’ll try to disappoint you.”
It wasn’t quite a smile, but it was enough to let me go.
Ruiz arranged for two investigators to drive me. I gave hospital security only what they needed: Silas’s name, a description supplied by Ruiz, and the warning that police believed he might be entering the grounds. I did not mention Tommy, his condition, or where he was being treated. I didn’t touch a chart or log into anything. The hospital could handle its own safety measures through the proper channels.
By the time we reached St. Gabriel, the sky had lightened from black to the dull gray of a winter morning. The snow had eased, but the wind still shoved flakes against the emergency entrance.
The hospital looked exactly as it always did at that hour: bright, busy, and too tired to be surprised by anything.
Security met us inside a staff entrance. The supervisor kept his voice low while Ruiz briefed him. A police officer stood beside him, listening. No one said a unit or a room aloud.
The supervisor nodded once.
“We’ll follow the established protective procedure. The clinical team is handling the patient move. Security will restrict the service doors and keep the public areas open unless police direct otherwise.”
“Thank you,” I said.
He glanced at my badge. “You’re off duty.”
“I know.”
“You should stay with the investigators.”
“I can do that.”
I could also hear the tightness in my own voice. There was a particular kind of fear that came from knowing a building well. I knew where the corridors narrowed, where the elevators opened, where a frightened family member might mistake a uniform for permission to ask questions.
I kept my hands visible and stayed where they put me.
The hospital liaison returned with confirmation that Tommy’s care team had moved him under the facility’s protective procedures. The move was completed without broadcasting his identity or location. No one asked me to help. No one needed me to know where he’d gone.
I let out the breath I’d been holding.
“Now we wait,” Ruiz said.
A radio crackled at her shoulder. An officer near the entrance answered, then looked toward the windows.
“The vehicle’s been located.”
Ruiz turned. “Where?”
“South access road. Officers are moving to intercept.”
The next radio call came less than a minute later.
“Vehicle stopped. Driver is out. He’s running.”
Every person in the lobby seemed to keep doing exactly what they had been doing. A receptionist typed. A transporter pushed an empty wheelchair past the security desk. Somewhere, a child laughed, then coughed.
The ordinary sounds made the words on the radio feel unreal.
Ruiz and the officers moved toward the staff corridor. One investigator motioned for me to stay back.
I stayed.
Through the glass at the end of the hall, I caught a glimpse of movement outside: dark coats, flashing lights, a man sprinting between the service entrance and the loading area. I couldn’t make out his face. An officer shouted for him to stop.
The man vanished through a side door.
“Silas is inside,” Ruiz said into her radio. “Seal the public routes. Keep the response contained. No one goes in alone.”
A man stood near the wall beyond the security desk, hands tense at his sides. Luca. He must have arrived with the investigators, though I hadn’t seen him come in. Two officers kept a few feet between him and the corridor.
His gaze was fixed on the door Silas had used.
For half a second, he leaned forward, as if his body had already decided to follow.
Then he stopped.
“North service passage,” he said.
Ruiz looked at him. “What?”
“The door he used connects to the older service corridor. It runs behind the loading wing and comes out near the imaging annex.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve been here enough times.” His jaw tightened. “The public hall bends toward the elevators. He won’t take it if he wants to stay out of sight.”
Ruiz spoke into her radio, relaying the route. Two officers moved toward a different exit.
Luca took one step toward the service door. An officer immediately shifted to block him.
“Don’t,” Ruiz said.
“I can get ahead of him.”
“No.”
His face had gone cold, but his hands were open at his sides. I saw the moment he could have pushed past the officer. I saw him choose not to.
“If I chase him,” Luca said, “you lose the witness and the chain of evidence. Send your people to the annex.”
“We are,” Ruiz replied. “Stay here.”
He looked at the door once more, then stepped back.
It wasn’t a confession or a clean break from the person he’d been. It was just one decision, made in front of people who could hold him to it.
Another radio call interrupted the silence.
“Service corridor clear at the north end. Checking the connecting doors.”
A few minutes passed. The hospital kept breathing around us. A nurse hurried by with a stack of folded blankets. A security officer spoke quietly to the front desk. Ruiz listened to reports that did not yet add up to a location or an arrest.
Then an alarm sounded somewhere beyond the staff corridor.
Not the broad, rising sweep of a fire alarm. A sharp, repeating tone—one that made people stop and look toward the back hall.
The security supervisor was already moving.
“Door alarm in the service passage,” he said. “Could be a forced door.”
I followed the officers as far as they allowed. At the corridor’s end, a hospital employee in blue scrubs stood on the near side of a heavy fire door, one palm pressed to the push bar. The door had jammed partway shut. A cart was wedged at an angle between the frame and the wall, its wheels locked against the threshold.
“I was bringing supplies through,” the employee said, breathless. “Then the alarm started, and the door slammed. I can’t get it open.”
“Step back,” an officer ordered.
The employee did, but only a little. Her face was pale. She kept glancing over her shoulder at the closed door.
“Is somebody on the other side?” I asked.
“I heard running. Then the door hit.”
The alarm continued its hard, steady pulse.
The supervisor called for facilities. An officer radioed the north end of the passage. Another stayed with the employee, guiding her away from the cart. I could see the spring-loaded closer at the top of the door, the metal frame, the narrow gap near the hinge. I could see why someone might get hurt trying to force it.
I also knew the corridor beyond it wasn’t a place to crowd into if Silas was still moving through the building.
“Don’t pull on the bar,” I told the employee. “Keep your hands clear. Let them get the cart out first.”
She nodded, swallowing hard.
Ruiz’s voice came from behind me.
“Nina, stay back.”
I stepped away from the door. The officers were in position. Facilities had been called. The sensible thing was to let the trained people handle it.
Then a heavy impact struck from the other side.
May you like
The employee flinched. The alarm kept pulsing.
The fire door buckled as someone struck it from the other side.
