Chapter 13 - Patient C

Patient C was twenty years old on paper. Caleb would have been twenty.

I couldn't stop repeating that coincidence, as if the right number of repetitions could turn it into proof.

Ortiz interviewed the Coldwater staff while Adrian called everyone he knew in medical logistics. Nobody offered answers until he mentioned the transfer vouchers discovered in Laurel’s archive. Then phones began ringing back.

A shipping clerk named Nolan agreed to meet us at a public diner outside town. He was nineteen, all elbows and nervous energy.

“I thought we were moving people between rehab centers,” he said, staring into his coffee. “They wore ordinary clothes. They weren't handcuffed. But they never spoke to the drivers.”

“When was the last trip?” Ortiz asked.

“Last night. White van. Two passengers. A nurse rode in back.”

“Where did they go?”

Nolan swallowed. “The old ferry terminal.”

Adrian leaned forward. “That's been closed for years.”

“Not the warehouse behind it.”

Ortiz sent a team to check the site. She ordered us home. Adrian obeyed for exactly eighteen minutes before asking his driver to take us to the waterfront. I told him this was a terrible idea as I got into the car.

“Then why are you coming?” he asked.

“Because my brother might be there.”

A freezing rain had started by the time we reached the terminal. The warehouse stood beyond a fence with a broken lock. Light shone through one high window.

We stayed behind a stack of pallets and watched a white van reverse toward the loading bay.

A young man climbed out. His face was turned away. He walked with a slight limp, holding a small backpack against his side.

Then he turned toward the floodlight.

Caleb.

I knew him in the ridiculous, immediate way a person knows their own heartbeat. His jaw was longer. His shoulders were broader. But it was him.

“Caleb!” I shouted.

He froze. For one second his eyes found mine.

Then he shook his head violently and yelled, “Mara, get down!”

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The warehouse lights went out.

And somebody slammed the van doors shut.