Chapter 16 - The Blue Handle

"That's the door," Cole whispered.

The blue handle was behind a dumpster, half hidden by rusted metal shelving. Lena pulled it. A man caught the door before it slammed against the frame.

Marcus Shaw wore a security jacket with blood on one sleeve. He looked at Cole's badge, then at Lena.

"You brought a cop. Good. You're going to need him."

"Where's Nora?" Lena demanded.

"Vale has her in the processing office. Pike's watching the hall."

"Why are you helping us?"

Shaw swallowed. "My daughter Hazel died at St. Agnes last year. Or that's what they told me. The night they took her downstairs, I heard her calling for me. I believed Vale when he said it was a reaction after death."

His voice broke on the last word.

"I helped roll the cart," he said. "I keep hearing the wheels."

Lena didn't forgive him. She didn't have time to. "Show us the patients."

Shaw led them through a storage room stacked with white transport bags. Several were moving. Lena opened the nearest one. A middle-aged woman gasped and grabbed her hand.

"You're safe," Lena told her. "We're getting you out."

In the next room, Ivy sat propped against a cabinet, barely conscious but alive. Two more patients lay beside her, still breathing. Shaw had pulled them off the loading list after Rourke called.

"I could only stop these," he said. "The others went through yesterday."

Nia's voice came through Cole's earpiece. "State police are twenty minutes out. The evidence is live. Every newsroom I've got is running it."

From beyond the processing door came Maya's voice.

"You let my sister walk out, and I'll stay."

Vale answered, calm as ever. "You're confusing mercy with negotiation."

Lena pressed her eye to the narrow window. Nora stood beside Vale, wrists tied, her face streaked with tears. Maya was on the other side of a steel loading gate. Behind her, a conveyor led toward the burning furnace.

Cole raised his weapon. Shaw reached for the gate controls.

Pike stepped from the shadows. "Don't touch that panel."

He fired. The bullet struck the metal railing, showering them with sparks. Cole ducked and returned fire toward the floor beside him.

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The motor started.

Maya stumbled backward as the loading gate slammed shut between her and the room.