Chapter 6 - The Roadblock
"Don't stop," Maya said from the back.
Lena looked at the patrol cars across the road. A deputy stepped out into the rain and raised a flashlight. There was a ditch to the right, deep enough to wreck the van. Behind them, hospital security was coming fast.
"Everybody hold on."
She turned hard. The van jumped the curb, tore through a wire fence, and dropped onto a muddy maintenance track. Laundry slammed into the windshield. Ivy shoved it aside as a shot cracked behind them.
"They fired at us!" Nora screamed.
"Keep your head down," Ivy said. She wrapped an arm around both sisters.
The van fishtailed under an overpass. Lena fought the wheel and stopped inches from a concrete support. Water poured over the hood. Above them, police sirens crossed the bridge.
A pickup rolled out of the dark, blocking the far end of the track. Its driver climbed out with both hands raised.
"Dr. Brooks? I'm Owen Cole. County detective."
"Good for you," Lena called through the window. "Move your truck."
"If I wanted you arrested, I'd have stayed on the road."
He was in his forties, with tired eyes and a torn leather jacket. He held up his badge, then a folded photograph. It showed three people in hospital gowns standing beside an elevator.
"I spent seven months looking for these patients," he said. "St. Agnes reported all three dead. None of their families got to see a body."
Lena wanted to believe him. That made her even more cautious.
"Why weren't you at the hospital?"
"Because Captain Rourke pulled me off the case yesterday. Because somebody changed my password. Because my partner told me to stop asking questions." Cole glanced up at the sirens. "Pick one."
Maya made a small choking sound. Lena climbed back to check her. Her pulse raced, then seemed to slip under Lena's fingers before returning.
"She needs a hospital," Ivy said.
"That's where they tried to kill her," Nora snapped.
"A different one," Lena answered, but she knew it wasn't that simple. The people hunting them could read medical records faster than she could hide them.
Cole opened his truck's rear door. "I've got a place off the county grid. We can call for help from there."
Lena looked at Nora, who held Maya's hand with both of hers.
"One wrong move," she told Cole, "and I walk."
He nodded. Then his phone buzzed with the latest county alert. Lena saw her hospital ID picture above the words WANTED FOR HOMICIDE.
May you like
The victim's name was listed underneath.
Maya Reed.
