Chapter 19: The Old Maternity Wing

The old maternity wing of St. Mercy had been closed for asbestos, budget concerns, and other lies. Ethan drove like a man trying to outrun a memory. Leah sat beside him with one hand braced against the dashboard and the other wrapped around the infant bracelet in her pocket. Megan followed in a rideshare because Ethan had refused to risk three people in one car. Rain turned the windshield into broken glass. "Tell me what happened to Elena," Leah said. Ethan did not answer. "You said they took her there." "I said too much." "One of you did." His hands tightened on the wheel. "Do not do that." "Do what? Notice that your voice changes when you talk about my mother?" The car swerved around a taxi. "Your mother is dead because adults who should have protected her made calculations." "Were you one of them?" He looked at her then, and the coldness came back like armor. "I was nine." Leah had no answer for that. They reached St. Mercy through a service road. Ethan used a key card that should not have worked. The old wing smelled of dust, plastic sheeting, and something metallic beneath it. At the end of the corridor, a woman's muffled cry came from behind a surgical storage door. Ethan drew a compact black device from his coat and killed the electronic lock. "Investment bankers carry lock jammers now?" "Only the sentimental ones." They entered. The records clerk sat bound to a chair, blood at her lip, but alive. Two men turned. One held a syringe. Ethan moved first. He was not graceful. He was efficient. The first man hit the floor with his wrist bent wrong. Leah grabbed a metal tray and slammed it into the second man's throat before fear could slow her. The syringe skittered across the tile. The clerk sobbed once. "They asked who took the Voss file." "What did you say?" Leah asked, cutting the tape. "That ghosts do not leave forwarding addresses." Leah almost smiled. Then the clerk gripped her hand. "There is another file. Not in records. In the chapel wall. Elena hid it before discharge." Ethan went pale. "What file?" Leah asked. The clerk looked at Ethan. "The witness statement." A door slammed somewhere in the wing. Megan's voice rang from the corridor. "Leah! More men!" Ethan grabbed Leah's wrist. But she had already seen the chapel sign at the end of the hall. If Elena Voss had left a witness statement, Leah was not leaving without her mother's voice.