Chapter 8
The alarm continued to pulse behind the metal door.
The officer kept one hand raised, holding us back while the property manager explained that the archive had a second exit leading to an old loading corridor. She couldn’t say whether that exit was still usable. Harold stood beside her, pale and motionless, staring at the lock.
“Everyone away from the door,” the officer ordered. “We don’t know what’s in there.”
Daniel moved first. He guided Allison and Elliot toward a small records room across the hall, keeping his body between them and the archive.
“Is this all right with you?” he asked Allison. “We can have an officer take you outside instead.”
Allison looked at the closed door, then at the uniformed officer waiting nearby.
“I’d rather stay where I can hear what’s happening,” she said. “But I don’t want to be left alone.”
“You won’t be,” Daniel assured her.
She nodded and stepped into the records room. Elliot followed, but he kept glancing back at the archive.
“You should stay with them,” I told him.
“I know.”
He didn’t move.
For a moment, his face looked so much like my father’s that I forgot what I was going to say. Then Elliot lowered his eyes and walked inside with Allison. Daniel stayed with them, and an officer took up position at the door.
The officer in charge called for the fire department and asked the property manager to describe the archive’s layout. No one touched the lock until the building’s safety had been checked. While we waited, the alarm kept sounding, steady and impersonal, as if the room itself were warning us away.
The property manager said the archive had been sealed when the clinic closed. The records inside were supposed to be old patient files, transfer logs, and administrative papers. The clinic had once shared a medical group with St. Anne’s Children’s Hospital, but she didn’t know how long the connection had lasted.
“Could someone still have access?” I asked.
“Possibly,” she said. “There were staff keys. I can’t tell you who kept them.”
Harold shifted his weight.
“I haven’t been inside in years.”
The officer looked at him.
“That’s something you can explain in your statement.”
“I will.”
The fire department arrived and checked the corridor. There was no smoke outside the archive, and the property manager confirmed that the alarm had its own battery. Under the officer’s direction, she unlocked the outer door with a key from the property office. The lock turned stiffly. Fresh scrapes surrounded the metal plate.
The alarm stopped as the door opened.
For one quiet second, nobody moved.
Then Daniel leaned toward the opening and sniffed.
“Something’s burning.”
The officer held him back and checked the room with a flashlight. No flames showed from the threshold. The fire crew entered first, carrying their equipment, while another officer followed to document what they found. I waited just outside the door, listening to the low exchange of their voices.
A moment later, the officer in charge beckoned me forward.
The archive was narrower than I’d expected, a windowless room crowded with metal shelves. Dust covered the highest boxes, but the floor held fresh marks. Someone had walked through recently. A cabinet stood open. Several folders had been pulled out and left scattered across a table.
Near the back wall, a small electronic unit blinked beneath a shelf. The fire captain pointed it out but didn’t touch it.
“Could be connected to the alarm,” he said. “We’ll have the right people examine it.”
One officer photographed the room while another marked the loose papers for collection. Nothing about the scene was neat or certain. A disturbance could mean someone had searched the archive—or tried to make it look that way.
I kept my hands at my sides.
A stack of folders had tipped against the table leg. The labels were faded, but one caught my eye: ST. ANNE’S—TRANSFER RECORDS.
“Can I look?” I asked.
“Only after we document it,” the officer said. “Then we’ll decide what can be handled.”
I waited while he photographed the label and the folders around it. He used gloves to lift the top folder. Inside were carbon copies and thin sheets of paper, some so brittle their edges had curled. He turned the pages slowly.
One form had a date near the top and a hospital reference number beside it. The birth date matched the one Elliot had given me earlier—the date he’d always celebrated, though he had no reason to believe his childhood documents told the whole truth.
The child’s name on the form wasn’t Ricci.
It read Elias Voss.
I stared at the surname.
The officer photographed the page, then set it beneath a clear evidence cover. A second sheet, folded inside the same folder, appeared to be a transfer note. It referred to an infant moved from St. Anne’s under that name. A destination had been written in a hurried hand, but the ink had faded until only fragments remained.
“This supports a connection,” the officer said. “It doesn’t establish who this child became.”
“I understand.”
I didn’t. Not fully. But I knew better than to turn a record into a verdict just because I wanted it to be one.
The officer brought the birth form to the doorway so Elliot could see it without entering the archive. Daniel remained at his side. Allison stood behind them, arms wrapped around herself.
Elliot read the date. His expression changed.
“That’s mine,” he said.
“It’s the date you were told,” I replied gently. “We still have to verify the record.”
He nodded, though his eyes stayed on the name.
“Elias Voss.”
“Did you ever hear that name?” Daniel asked.
“No.”
Elliot looked from the paper to me.
“But the date is right.”
For the first time, he seemed less frightened than exhausted. I recognized the feeling. Hope could be a burden when every piece of proof came with another reason to doubt it.
Before anyone could ask another question, a sharp noise came from the loading corridor beyond the archive.
The officer turned.
“Stay here.”
A figure in dark clothing appeared in the open doorway at the far end of the room. Their face was partly hidden by the angle and the harsh light behind them. They looked toward us, then bolted down the corridor.
Daniel ran after them.
“Daniel!” I shouted.
The officer followed, calling for the figure to stop. Their footsteps struck the concrete in quick, uneven bursts. I stayed where I was, between the archive and the witnesses, while another officer moved to block the corridor from the opposite direction.
A door slammed.
Then came a shout from farther away.
Daniel returned seconds later, breathing hard. His hands were empty.
“They got outside,” he said. “I lost sight of them at the service entrance.”
The officer spoke into his radio, giving the direction the figure had taken. Daniel looked down at the floor near the archive’s rear doorway.
“They dropped something.”
A gold watch lay on its side beside a scuffed patch of concrete. Its dark green dial caught the light.
My stomach tightened.
I knew the watch. I’d given it to Michael for his thirty-fifth birthday.
The officer photographed it where it lay before placing it in an evidence bag. None of us said Michael’s name. The watch could have been taken, borrowed, planted, or dropped by someone who wanted us to find it. It was a lead, not proof.
The fire captain called from the archive.
“Everybody back. Now.”
A thin thread of smoke curled from behind the shelves.
We moved into the corridor as the fire crew went in. An officer closed the inner door after them, keeping us clear while they checked the source. Allison gripped the edge of the records-room doorway. Elliot stood beside her, his gaze fixed on the evidence bag with the green-dial watch.
Then the alarm started again.
Through the narrow glass panel in the archive door, I saw a red glow flicker between the shelves.
May you like
The fire captain shouted for water.
A sheet of paper curled inward, its edge blackening as a flame caught the stack beneath it. The archive’s remaining files had begun to burn.
