Chapter 3 - A Voice in the Dark

Lena showed Maya the message. Every bit of color left her face.

"They have her phone," Maya said. "Nora always sends three hearts after a text. She wouldn't write that."

"What's the passcode?"

"Her birthday. July nine, then the year."

Lena unlocked it on the second try. No service. Then a call came through on the hospital Wi-Fi. NO CALLER ID.

"Maya?" a girl's voice asked.

Maya reached for the phone so fast the IV tape on her arm tore loose. "Nora! Baby, are you hurt?"

"I don't know where I am." Nora sounded as though she were holding her breath. "There's a loading door. It smells like gasoline. A guy with a sheriff's patch told me to sit down."

Lena took the phone. "Nora, I'm Dr. Brooks. Can you see any signs?"

"A big number four. And boxes. Why does everybody keep saying my sister's dead?"

Before Lena could answer, someone said, "Give me that," far from the phone. Nora screamed. The line went dead.

The morgue's back door rattled. A woman in navy scrubs slipped inside carrying a bundle of clean linens. Ivy Chen had worked at St. Agnes for eleven years and knew every shortcut its administrators pretended didn't exist.

"I got your text," Ivy said. Then she saw Maya sit up. "Oh, my God."

"The paperwork is forged," Lena said. "And a child is being held downstairs."

Ivy leaned against the counter for half a second, steadied herself, then pulled a wheelchair out of the supply alcove. "Loading dock four connects to the old laundry hall. Security never watches the steam tunnel because the camera's broken."

"You knew that awfully fast."

"When your bosses spend more money hiding things than fixing things, you notice."

Lena wrapped a blanket around Maya, who could barely hold her head up. Ivy placed a folded towel over the young woman's scratched cheeks.

"If anyone asks," Ivy said, "she's going to imaging."

Maya caught Lena's sleeve. "Nora hates the dark."

"Then we'll get her out of it."

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They pushed through the supply corridor, past silent carts and a vending machine buzzing under a broken EXIT sign. At the last corner Ivy stopped.

Two men were rolling a black transport bag toward the loading dock. From inside it came three soft knocks.