Chapter 5
At ten the next morning, Gabriel and I sat in a coffee shop across from the bus station, exactly where Noah had told us to sit.
The windows were fogged at the edges from the difference between the cold parking lot and the crowded room. Buses sighed at the curb across the street. Every few minutes, people came in carrying paper cups and the flat, tired expressions of travelers who had been awake too long.
Noah chose the table with a clear view of both entrances. He wore a county investigator’s badge clipped inside his jacket, visible only when he leaned forward. He placed a thin folder between us.
“I ran the medication labels through the state database,” he said. “The compound isn’t unusual. The way it was documented is.”
Gabriel kept his hands flat on the table. “Meaning?”
“Meaning the pharmacy logged one batch, the patient chart logged another, and the dispensing cabinet shows a third entry that was canceled before the dose was removed.”
I felt the coffee cup tremble slightly under my fingers.
Noah looked at me. “You’re sure the tubing came from Gabriel’s room?”
“I stopped the infusion myself.”
“And you didn’t touch the label?”
“Not until I sealed it.”
“That’s good.” He glanced at Gabriel. “What were you investigating before you were admitted?”
Gabriel stared through the window at a bus pulling away. “Safety reports. Occupied rooms listed as cleared after inspections found problems with emergency lighting, oxygen shutoffs, and fire doors.”
“Which hospital?”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened. “Vale Medical Center.”
Noah nodded as if the answer fit something already in his notes. “Do you remember the report?”
“I remember reading it. I don’t remember where I stored the original.”
A waitress came by with a refill. She set it down too hard, and coffee jumped over the rim of my cup. I wiped it with a napkin while Gabriel watched the door.
After Noah left, we stayed another ten minutes without speaking.
Then Gabriel said, “There’s a place.”
I looked at him.
“Not the hospital. A diner off Route 18. I used to meet a source there. I rented a locker beneath one of the booths.”
“You rented a locker at a diner?”
“I needed somewhere ordinary.” His mouth pulled faintly to one side. “Ordinary places are harder to explain when someone searches your apartment.”
The diner sat beside a county road lined with bare trees and low storage units. A faded sign buzzed above the entrance. Inside, the air smelled of bacon grease, bleach, and coffee that had been sitting on a burner too long.
Gabriel paused before the third booth from the back.
“Here.”
He crouched, lifted the wooden panel beneath the seat, and reached into the dark space. His fingers found a small metal box. The lock had been forced. The lid hung crooked.
Inside were damp paper scraps, a cracked flash drive, and a folded napkin with three handwritten inspection dates.
Gabriel picked up the papers carefully. “Someone got here first.”
I unfolded the napkin. The dates matched three hospital wings, all marked as cleared within forty-eight hours of one another.
“Why damage only these?”
“Because they wanted the names unreadable.”
A pickup truck stopped outside. Gabriel immediately lowered the panel and pushed the box beneath his jacket.
The truck’s driver came in, glanced toward us, and walked to the counter. Nothing happened. Still, Gabriel didn’t sit again.
He examined the flash drive under the diner’s yellow light. A strip of masking tape clung to it. On the tape, in faded ink, was one word: GALA.
Back at June’s duplex, the flash drive opened to a single file. Most of it was corrupted, but one page loaded: a list of inspection numbers beside dates, initials, and locations.
At the bottom, someone had typed a note.
EXPANSION ANNOUNCEMENT — THREE DAYS.
Gabriel leaned back from the laptop.
“That’s Vale’s foundation gala,” he said.
May you like
I looked at the damaged list again. One location was the foundation tower.
The ordinary place we needed was about to become the most watched room in the county.
