Chapter 8 - The Woman Outside Noah’s Door
The pediatric corridor was empty.
Too empty.
Piper sprinted past the nurses’ station and nearly collided with Marcus, who was coming out of the family lounge.
“What happened?”
“Noah.”
Marcus ran with her.
The officer assigned to Noah’s door lay unconscious beside the wall. His weapon remained holstered, but a needle mark showed beneath his jaw.
Lauren was asleep in the chair beside Noah’s bed.
Noah was still there.
Piper entered first and checked both of them.
“They’re breathing.”
Marcus grabbed the unconscious officer’s radio.
“Security!”
Adrian and Renata arrived seconds later.
Renata’s team sealed the floor.
Piper examined the ventilation port above Noah’s bed.
A sweet chemical smell lingered in the air.
“Sedative gas,” she said.
Adrian looked at the ceiling.
“Why isn’t Piper affected?”
“She wasn’t here,” Marcus said.
Piper checked Noah’s pupils.
“He received less exposure. Lauren was closer to the vent.”
Renata reviewed the corridor feed.
The camera showed a nurse entering the hallway with a medication cart. Her face was hidden by a mask and surgical cap.
She stopped at the officer’s side, pretended to ask a question, then injected him.
The video glitched for twelve seconds.
When it returned, the woman was gone.
No one entered Noah’s room.
Piper replayed the footage.
“Pause.”
Renata froze the image.
The woman’s left ear was visible.
Beneath it was a narrow scar.
“Mara,” Piper said.
Marcus looked at the screen.
“That’s the woman Celeste met?”
“Yes.”
“She was standing outside my son’s room.”
“She wanted me to see that she could reach him.”
Marcus turned on Piper.
“Then go to Chicago.”
Adrian stared at him.
“What?”
“If that’s what she wants, do it.”
Lauren stirred in the chair.
Marcus lowered his voice.
“She is using Noah to force Piper toward that locker. Keeping Piper here puts him in danger.”
Piper looked at her brother.
“You think giving Mara what she wants will make her stop?”
“I think we don’t know anything.”
“That is why we don’t follow her plan.”
“What is your plan?”
Piper had no answer.
Marcus laughed bitterly.
“You save people when they stop breathing. You cut them open. You fix what is broken. But this is different, isn’t it? You can’t control it.”
“No.”
The honesty surprised him.
Piper continued.
“But neither can Mara. She needed to threaten Noah because she’s afraid of what Daniel left behind.”
Renata spoke.
“The Chicago team will secure the locker.”
Piper shook her head.
“Mara knows we have the key.”
“How?”
“She watched Daniel.”
“From where?”
Piper looked at the compromised cabinet.
“Inside the hospital.”
Adrian frowned.
“You think someone on staff is helping her?”
“I think someone disabled part of the backup system and provided access to a maintenance shaft.”
Renata’s radio crackled.
“Chief, we found the medication cart.”
“Location?”
“Service elevator, level B.”
“Any suspect?”
“Negative.”
Renata left with two officers.
Adrian examined Lauren while Piper remained beside Noah.
Marcus stood near the window.
After a moment, he said, “Why did you never tell me?”
Piper knew what he meant.
“About being a doctor?”
“Yes.”
“You wouldn’t have believed me.”
“You didn’t give me the chance.”
“You called me a liar before you knew what I was saying.”
“I thought you were pretending to be a nurse.”
“Because Mom told you I failed nursing school.”
He looked down.
“I never checked.”
“No.”
“I was busy.”
“You were willing to build an opinion of my entire life without spending five minutes checking.”
Marcus winced.
Piper softened only slightly.
“Why does the truth matter now?”
“Because my son is alive because of you.”
“That should not be the reason you respect me.”
“No.”
“But it is.”
He looked at her.
“I don’t know how to fix that.”
“You don’t.”
“What do I do?”
“Start by not making your guilt my responsibility.”
He nodded slowly.
It was not forgiveness.
But it was the first honest conversation they had shared in years.
Renata returned twenty minutes later.
“The woman escaped through an ambulance bay. We found her disguise.”
“Fingerprints?” Piper asked.
“None.”
“Hospital access badge?”
“Stolen from a nurse whose home was broken into yesterday.”
Adrian folded his arms.
“She planned every step.”
Piper’s phone rang again.
This time the caller identification showed an internal hospital extension.
She answered.
“Dr. Hale.”
A man’s voice whispered, “Don’t trust the chief.”
The line went dead.
Piper looked at Adrian.
He had heard.
His expression changed.
“What chief?” Marcus asked.
No one answered.
There were three chiefs involved.
Adrian Cross, chief of emergency medicine.
Renata Cole, chief of security.
And Malcolm Vane, the former chief medical officer believed to be dead.
The internal extension traced to an abandoned administrative office on the twelfth floor.
Renata’s officers searched it.
No caller.
No phone.
Only one object sat on the desk.
A framed photograph taken seventeen years earlier.
It showed Thomas Hale in a hospital bed after his drowning.
May you like
Beside him stood Malcolm Vane.
And on Thomas’s other side stood a much younger Adrian Cross.
