Chapter 6 - The Road Under Hart House
The fourth mark pointed toward the abandoned greenhouse.
Richard had built it for Evelyn during the first year of their marriage, but after his death she stopped tending it. Vines swallowed the glass walls. Broken panes reflected the security lights like scattered ice.
Emma, Evelyn, Brooks, and two federal agents searched until midnight. Beneath a rusted potting table, Emma found a brass plate shaped like the blue symbol. Pressing the vertical line released a concealed latch.
The floor lifted on hydraulic hinges.
A concrete ramp descended beneath the estate.
Old architectural plans showed no tunnel. Yet the passage was wide enough for an ambulance and equipped with recessed lights that still worked. Tire marks led into the darkness.
"How could this exist without you knowing?" Brooks asked.
Evelyn touched the wall. "Richard renovated the greenhouse while I was pregnant with Noah. He said the foundation needed emergency storage."
Half a mile beneath the property, the tunnel divided. One branch ended at a sealed loading bay. The other led to a room containing surveillance equipment, medical supplies, and a map of Hart facilities across the country. Several locations had been crossed out. One red pin marked an old rehabilitation center near Lake Ashcombe.
Emma recognized the name from Meridian payment records.
On a desk sat a portable radio tuned to a dead frequency. She switched it on. Static filled the room, followed by a man's voice.
"Em?"
Her knees weakened.
"Noah?"
A burst of interference swallowed the reply. Then his voice returned, faint and urgent.
"Do not trust the recovery team. Voss has someone inside Brooks's unit. The lake site is a trap. Find Patient Zero."
The transmission ended.
Brooks ordered everyone to surrender their phones and radios. One federal agent protested. The other reached slowly toward his weapon.
Evelyn saw it first. "Lena."
Brooks turned as Agent Cole drew his pistol. The second agent tackled him. A shot struck the ceiling. Concrete dust rained down. Emma dropped behind the desk while the two men fought. Brooks kicked Cole's wrist and disarmed him.
Cole bit down on something hidden inside his molar.
Foam appeared at his lips. He collapsed before anyone could stop him.
A tiny capsule had released poison.
On his phone, investigators found encrypted messages from a contact identified only as ZERO. The most recent message read: If Hart hears the brother, initiate lake protocol.
"Patient Zero is giving orders," Emma said.
"Or someone wants us to think so," Brooks replied.
The captured phone also contained a photograph taken inside Emma's hospital room before the ventilator was removed. Evelyn sat asleep beside the bed. In the reflection of a metal cabinet, a person wearing a doctor's coat watched from the doorway.
The face was Richard Hart's.
Evelyn stared at the image until her hands shook. "That could be altered."
Emma enlarged it. The man looked older than Richard had at the time of the crash. Gray touched his temples. A scar crossed his jaw. He wore the ring with the blue symbol.
"He pulled me from the car," Emma said.
The conclusion divided the room. Brooks believed the image might be bait. Evelyn wanted to believe Richard had survived but feared what survival meant. Emma felt only anger. If her father was alive, he had watched his son disappear and his daughter nearly die.
At dawn, forensic technicians traced the radio signal. It had bounced through multiple repeaters, but one originated from the Lake Ashcombe rehabilitation center.
Despite Noah's warning, Emma decided to go.
"He said it was a trap," Evelyn argued.
"He also told me to find Patient Zero. The trap may be the only path they left us."
Brooks arranged a covert approach rather than an official raid. The center had been closed for seven years after flood damage. Satellite images showed no activity, yet thermal scans detected power below ground.
Before they left, Emma returned to the tunnel's loading bay. A row of lockers stood against the wall. The brass key from Noah's coat opened locker twelve.
Inside was a clean shirt, a bottle of water, and a handwritten letter dated three days earlier.
Emma recognized Noah's writing.
The letter contained only one paragraph.
Emma, if you found this, Mother succeeded. Celeste will tell you I am alive because she needs you moving toward the lake. Go, but do not let them put you to sleep. Patient Zero is not our father. Patient Zero is the reason he disappeared.
May you like
Below the signature, Noah added a final line.
Ask Mother which child was born first.\n\nNoah's letter contained pressure marks from another page written above it. A laboratory enhanced the indentations and recovered a partial sentence: Grace remembers the lullaby. Evelyn recognized the melody as one she used during both Noah's and Emma's childhood illnesses, though she could not remember learning it. When she hummed the first notes, the tunnel radio briefly activated by itself. Somewhere in the network, a machine had been waiting decades for a mother's song.
