Chapter 3 - The Hospital Without Children
St. Orison Children’s Hospital had been abandoned for twenty-seven years.
The central building rose from a field of dead grass, its windows boarded and its brick exterior stained black by decades of rain. A rusted playground stood behind a collapsed fence. The swings moved slightly despite the absence of wind.
Elise parked near the former ambulance entrance.
“We should wait for security.”
“The person sending messages knows where I am.”
“That is exactly why we should wait.”
“They also accessed an account your team told me was dormant and untraceable.”
Elise did not answer.
Vivian studied her.
“How much have you kept from me?”
“Nothing related to your trust.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Elise switched off the engine.
“When your grandmother hired my firm, she included a sealed directive. I was instructed to protect your financial interests and never investigate your birth unless one of three events occurred.”
“What events?”
“Malcolm or Lorraine attempted to seize direct control of the trust. Someone activated the Eleanor Wren account. Or you received evidence connected to the Bellweather fire.”
“All three happened tonight.”
“Yes.”
“So what was in the directive?”
Elise reached into her case and removed a sealed black envelope.
Vivian recognized the handwriting on the front.
She had seen it in birthday cards sent by a woman she had known as Aunt Miriam.
Miriam Vale had visited only six times during Vivian’s childhood. She wore tailored dresses, smelled faintly of lavender, and always asked Vivian questions that seemed strange at the time.
Do you feel safe in your bedroom?
Does your mother open your letters?
Has your father ever taken you somewhere and told you to keep it secret?
Miriam died when Vivian was nineteen.
Or so Vivian had been told.
Elise handed her the envelope.
“If the Eleanor Wren account becomes active, take Vivian to St. Orison. Give her this letter only after she enters Ward C.”
“Why Ward C?”
“I don’t know.”
They entered the building through a side door that had been recently forced open.
Vivian switched on her phone’s flashlight.
Dust covered the reception desk. Old wheelchairs lined the wall. Faded cartoon animals smiled from murals beneath layers of mold.
Their footsteps echoed through the corridors.
Ward C occupied the third floor.
The stairwell door opened with a groan.
Inside the ward, twelve patient rooms faced a central nurses’ station. Most of the doors stood open. Rusted bed frames remained in several rooms.
Elise checked the number written in Miriam’s directive.
“C-17.”
They found the room at the end of the corridor.
Unlike the others, its door was locked with a modern electronic keypad.
A green light glowed above the numbers.
Vivian stepped closer.
“This building has no electricity.”
Elise raised her phone to record the door.
“Someone installed an independent power supply.”
A message appeared on Vivian’s screen.
THE DATE SHE GAVE YOU.
“What date?”
Elise looked at the keypad.
“Your birthday.”
Vivian entered it.
The lock remained red.
“That isn’t the date,” she said.
She turned over Elena’s photograph. Four days before the fire. A newborn in a white blanket.
Beneath the written caption, almost hidden in the crease, was a date.
September 14.
Vivian’s legal birthday was September 18.
She entered 0914.
The light turned green.
Inside C-17, the dust ended.
The room had been cleaned recently.
A wooden desk stood beneath the boarded window. On it rested an old cassette recorder, a metal key, and a stack of medical records bound with red string.
A child’s bed occupied one corner.
Above it, someone had painted a crescent moon.
Vivian approached the records.
The first page bore the logo of St. Orison Hospital.
PATIENT WREN-7.
FEMALE.
ESTIMATED AGE: FOUR DAYS.
ADMITTING GUARDIAN: ELENA VALE.
Vivian turned the page.
The infant had been admitted with smoke inhalation, bruising to the left shoulder, and a surgical incision beneath the ear.
A scar in the shape of a crescent.
The next page contained a handwritten instruction.
If Elena does not return, the infant is to be transferred under the Hart placement protocol.
Vivian’s knees weakened.
Elise steadied her.
“What is the Hart placement protocol?”
Vivian looked toward the cassette recorder.
Its play button was already pressed down.
The tape began turning.
Static filled the room.
Then a woman spoke.
“My name is Elena Vale. If Vivian is hearing this, then they succeeded in taking her from me.”
Vivian stopped breathing.
The voice continued.
“Malcolm Hart was never meant to raise my daughter. Lorraine was never meant to replace me. They were selected because they were desperate, indebted, and easy to control.”
Elise locked the door behind them.
On the tape, Elena began to cry.
“I tried to expose the Meridian Program. I thought the police would protect us. I was wrong. The people behind it own judges, banks, hospitals, and families. They alter records. They purchase loyalty. They erase children.”
Vivian stared at the bed.
“They told me the fire would destroy the evidence,” Elena continued. “I hid what I could. Miriam knows part of the truth. Eleanor knows the rest.”
The tape clicked.
Another voice replaced Elena’s.
A man’s voice.
“If Vivian ever reaches this room, terminate the recording and evacuate the facility.”
Elise looked sharply at the recorder.
The voice continued.
“She will not be alone.”
A soft mechanical sound came from the wall behind the bed.
Vivian turned.
A red light blinked beneath the painted moon.
Elise grabbed her.
“Move.”
The hospital alarm began screaming.
At the end of the corridor, the stairwell door slammed open.
Footsteps rushed toward Ward C.
Not one person.
Several.
Vivian snatched the key and medical records from the desk.
Elise drew a compact pistol from beneath her coat.
“You carry a gun?”
“Your grandmother paid for more than legal advice.”
The handle of C-17 began to turn.
Elise raised the weapon.
Before the door opened, a panel behind the child’s bed slid aside.
A woman reached through the darkness and seized Vivian’s arm.
Vivian nearly screamed.
The woman pulled back her hood.
She was older than the figure in the photograph, her hair streaked with gray, but the pale eyes were unmistakable.
May you like
The crescent scar beneath her ear matched Vivian’s.
“Come with me,” she whispered. “Unless you want your parents to finish what they started.”
