Chapter 10 - Floor Seven
Police locked down the floor.
Elevators stopped.
Stairwell doors were watched.
Cole had nowhere to go.
At least that’s what we believed.
Then the fire alarm went off.
Every door released.
Sprinklers didn’t activate.
No smoke.
Someone had manually triggered the system.
“Stay here,” Ortiz ordered.
Hospital staff began moving patients according to emergency protocol.
Chaos flooded the corridor.
Nurses.
Wheelchairs.
Visitors.
Security.
Exactly what Cole needed.
I saw a man in blue scrubs turn the corner.
Same height.
Same walk.
“Cole!”
He looked back.
Then ran.
I followed before my brain could catch up.
“Nora!” Ortiz shouted.
Cole pushed through a stairwell door.
I entered seconds later.
He was already descending.
“Stop!”
His laughter echoed upward.
“You were always Robert’s difficult daughter.”
I froze.
He stopped one flight below.
Slowly looked up.
“You knew Dad well.”
“Better than you did.”
“You killed him?”
“No.”
“But you covered it up.”
“I certified his death.”
My skin crawled.
Dad had not even been given a full autopsy.
Cole had signed off on the apparent accident.
“You declared Mom incompetent.”
“She was becoming forgetful.”
“You drugged her.”
“Valerie handled medication.”
“You gave her the drugs.”
He smiled.
“Can you prove that?”
Footsteps sounded above me.
Ortiz.
Cole moved.
He ran downward.
I followed to the sixth floor.
Then fifth.
He burst through a door.
I came out into a service corridor.
Empty carts lined the wall.
Cole was gone.
“Nora!”
Ortiz reached me.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
A crash came from the laundry room.
Ortiz drew her weapon.
We entered.
A hospital aide lay on the floor, conscious but bleeding from the forehead.
His uniform was gone.
Cole had changed clothes.
By the time police sealed the building again, he had vanished.
But he made one mistake.
The aide he attacked had been carrying a hospital tablet.
Security found it abandoned in the stairwell.
On the screen was a patient chart Cole had searched minutes earlier.
Not Mom’s.
Valerie’s.
Ortiz looked at me.
“He’s going after your sister.”
We ran.
Valerie’s room was empty.
A nurse stood outside, pale.
“I thought detectives moved her.”
“What detectives?”
“Two men. Plain clothes. They showed badges.”
Ortiz swore.
“They weren’t ours.”
The bed sheets were pulled back.
Valerie’s IV had been removed.
On the pillow was a folded note.
My name was written across the front.
I opened it.
NORA—
HE KNOWS ABOUT THE ACCOUNT.
DON’T TRUST DIANE.
The note ended there.
No explanation.
No signature.
Just one dark fingerprint of blood at the bottom.
I looked at Ortiz.
“What account?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
But Diane did.
When we reached her interview room, her chair was empty too.
And this time, nobody had taken her.
May you like
She had walked out on her own.
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