Chapter 8 - The Fire Alarm
I ran upward against the evacuation flow.
People cursed as I shoved past them.
“Five-year-old girl!” I yelled. “Pink shirt, dark coat!”
Nobody had seen her.
Tessa stayed one floor below with Melissa.
Ortiz met me outside Pediatrics.
“Where is she?”
“Gone.”
Her face hardened.
“Cameras.”
The security office was chaos.
Fire panels flashed. Feeds switched between stairwells and exits.
A technician pulled camera twenty-seven.
“There.”
Lucy appeared near the service elevators.
Walking.
Not dragged.
Beside a woman in a black dress and hospital badge.
“Zoom.”
The image sharpened.
Eleanor Price.
Reed’s executive assistant.
Ortiz swore.
Eleanor bent toward Lucy and showed her something hanging from a lanyard.
Lucy looked at it.
Then took Eleanor’s hand.
“What did she show her?” Ortiz asked.
I leaned closer.
The badge was old.
Blue stripe.
Pediatric social work.
Rachel’s badge.
I knew the photo because I had carried it in a box after she died.
“How does Eleanor have that?”
No one answered.
The feed followed them to the underground ambulance bay.
An ambulance waited with its rear doors open.
No markings I recognized.
Eleanor lifted Lucy inside.
Then Reed stepped into frame.
My lungs stopped working.
He looked directly at the camera.
Not accidentally.
Directly.
Then the feed cut.
“Plate,” Ortiz said.
The technician rewound two seconds.
Ortiz radioed dispatch.
A response came back fast.
“Private carrier. Lakefront Medical Transport.”
“Destination?”
Another pause.
“Northbridge Pediatric Recovery Center.”
I grabbed the desk.
“It doesn’t exist.”
Ortiz looked at me.
“Then somebody built an ambulance route to nowhere.”
The technician held up one finger.
“Wait.”
An audio channel was still live from the bay radio repeater.
Static hissed.
Then a small voice.
“Dr. Shaw?”
Lucy.
I snatched the microphone.
“Lucy? Lucy, I’m here.”
No answer.
A man spoke instead.
Reed.
“He can’t hear you.”
I pressed transmit.
“Malcolm.”
Static.
“You touch her and I will—”
The channel clicked dead.
Ortiz grabbed her coat.
“Come on.”
I followed her.
At the elevator, my phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A GPS pin.
South Chicago industrial district.
Under it:
IF YOU WANT MARA ALIVE, COME BEFORE REED DOES.
Ortiz looked over my shoulder.
“Trap?”
“Obviously.”
“You going?”
I pressed the elevator button.
May you like
“Obviously.”
