Chapter 4 - The Blue Room

They escaped through a laundry chute that was much too narrow for Ethan's shoulders. He hit the bottom covered in lint and fury. Mara landed beside him; Lily came last, brave enough not to cry.

Outside the mansion, rain silvered the gardens. A service van idled behind the catering tents. Mara stole the keys from its ignition and drove with both hands locked on the wheel.

"The blue room is in the east wing of the old clinic," she said. "It was sealed after a fire."

"Why does Lily know it?" Ethan asked.

"Her mother worked there. Her name was Hannah Mercer. She disappeared four months ago."

Lily watched the windshield wipers. "Mommy said I should always count to seven when I got scared."

"Does that help?" Ethan asked.

"Sometimes. Tonight I got to nine hundred."

The number hurt him more than his bruised ribs.

Ethan called Olivia's phone. Straight to voicemail. He called the hospital listed on the ambulance route. No admission. He called another. Nothing.

"They diverted her," Mara said. "We have to find her."

At St. Agnes, the ruined east wing stood behind a fence wrapped in warning signs. Mara cut a chain with bolt cutters from the van. In the dark, the clinic's windows looked like empty eye sockets.

The brass key opened a blue-painted door at the end of a corridor. Inside, the room smelled of dust and old disinfectant. A desk stood under a plastic sheet. On it sat a child's drawing of a woman holding a little girl's hand.

Lily reached for it. "That's mine."

Mara lifted the desk blotter and found a flash drive taped underneath. Ethan plugged it into his phone using Mara's adapter. Folder after folder appeared: invoices, patient names, scanned consent forms.

One file carried his dead brother's name: DANIEL WHITMORE.

"Daniel was killed in a car accident," Ethan said.

Mara's voice softened. "That's what they told you."

The phone began playing a video. Daniel appeared on a hospital bed, pale and sweating, looking straight into the camera.

"If anything happens to me," he said, "my father did this."

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A door slammed somewhere in the dark corridor.

Someone had followed them inside.