Chapter 12 - The Wrong Badge
Alexander reached the stairwell first.
Ortiz pulled him back before he opened the door.
“Behind me.”
Inside, Elise stood against the landing wall.
One hand gripped the railing.
The other protected her stomach.
A man in hospital scrubs stood two steps below her.
He held a wheelchair with one hand and her wrist with the other.
Not Vale.
Someone younger.
Someone who looked painfully ordinary.
“Let her go,” Ortiz said.
He raised his free hand.
“I’m transporting a patient.”
“She said no.”
“She’s confused.”
Elise’s face changed.
Anger broke through fear.
“I said no.”
Ortiz repeated the order.
This time, the man released her.
A second officer came through the door behind us.
The man dropped his badge and ran down the stairs.
He made it one flight.
We heard a crash, a command, then silence.
Elise swayed.
Alexander moved instinctively.
Then stopped short of touching her.
“Can I help you?”
She looked at him.
For the first time since the hospital, she nodded.
He offered his arm.
She took it.
Back in her room, staff changed access procedures and moved her to a more secure area.
The man’s badge was fake.
The transfer order was not.
It had been entered through a doctor’s active credentials.
Price’s.
Even from an interview room, his access had remained useful to people who knew his login.
Ortiz made another call.
This time, when she said his name, there was nothing patient in her voice.
Elise sat on the edge of the bed.
“He told me you were waiting downstairs,” she said to Alexander.
“I won’t ask you to go anywhere alone.”
“You said something like that once.”
He bowed his head.
“I know.”
She studied him.
“Did you bury me?”
His answer barely came out.
“Yes.”
“What did you put in the coffin?”
“I don’t know.”
The room went quiet.
Then Elise began crying.
Not gracefully.
Not like someone in a movie.
She pressed her fists against her mouth and struggled to breathe around three years of being told she had no life to return to.
Alexander cried, too.
He stayed where she could see him.
He did not reach for forgiveness.
Ortiz stepped outside with me.
The memory card from David’s locker contained photographs of Briar House delivery records and a short video.
In it, Julian stood beside a transport van.
Vale asked what to do about the driver who kept asking questions.
Julian answered without looking up.
“Make it look like his fault.”
I stared at the screen.
Ortiz stopped the video.
Then her phone rang.
They had found Julian.
May you like
He was at Whitmore headquarters.
Calling an emergency board meeting.
