Chapter 9 - THE FALL THAT DID NOT HAPPEN
I lunged toward Tanner.
The platform tilted beneath his chair.
Maeve grabbed the rear support cable.
Officer Ruiz seized the opposite side.
The platform stopped halfway over the maintenance pit.
Tanner’s chair slid toward the edge.
I caught the front leg.
Pain tore through my shoulder.
“Cut him loose!” I shouted.
Maeve held the cable with both hands.
“I cannot let go!”
Ruiz drew a utility blade from her belt.
She crawled across the tilted platform.
The metal groaned.
Tanner watched her approach.
His breathing became fast and shallow.
“You are okay,” Ruiz said.
“Keep looking at me.”
She cut the tape around his wrists.
Then the support cable snapped.
The platform dropped another foot.
Maeve fell to one knee.
I wrapped both arms around Tanner’s chair.
Ruiz cut the final restraint.
I pulled him against my chest.
We rolled onto the solid floor as the platform crashed into the pit.
Tanner clung to me.
“I knew you would come.”
“I will always come.”
Officer Ruiz retrieved the chess-piece camera.
“Did this record her confession?”
Tanner nodded.
“I took it from Dad’s old security set.”
“I hid it in my sock.”
Ruiz inspected the tiny device.
“You just gave us probable cause for half the state.”
An officer shouted from the projection booth.
“We found a tunnel.”
We followed him through a narrow maintenance corridor.
The exit opened behind the observatory.
Fresh tire tracks crossed the mud.
Meredith was gone.
But she had left something behind.
Dr. Vale lay unconscious beside the fence.
His hands were tied.
A bruise darkened his temple.
When he woke, he looked terrified.
“She took my phone,” he said.
Ruiz crouched beside him.
“You are under arrest.”
“You need to listen.”
“No.”
“You need to find her before she reaches the clinic.”
“Why?”
Vale swallowed.
“The records.”
“What records?”
“Every child.”
“Every guardian.”
“Every account.”
He looked at Tanner.
“She will burn everything.”
I grabbed the front of his coat.
“How many children?”
He closed his eyes.
“Twenty-three.”
Maeve stared at him in horror.
“You drugged twenty-three children?”
“I followed protocols.”
“You manufactured illness.”
Vale looked at her.
“You think Meredith invented this?”
“She inherited it.”
“From whom?”
He laughed weakly.
“Ask Gerald Voss.”
Ruiz pulled me away from him.
“We need to move.”
Tanner refused to let go of my hand.
“I’m going with you.”
“No.”
“Dad, she knows I recorded her.”
“That is why you are going somewhere safe.”
“She always finds me.”
His words cut deeper than any accusation.
I knelt in front of him.
“Not anymore.”
Officer Ruiz assigned two deputies to Tanner and Maeve.
I rode with Ruiz toward Ashbury Clinic.
Smoke appeared above the trees before we reached the gate.
The administrative wing was burning.
Employees rushed across the lawn.
Patients stood behind locked windows.
A security guard ran toward us.
“Someone disabled the doors.”
Ruiz looked at the flames.
“Where are the children?”
“Third floor.”
Maeve’s voice came through my phone.
“Lincoln.”
I had not realized she was still connected.
“What?”
“Tanner is gone.”
My blood froze.
“How?”
“The deputy received a transfer order.”
“From whom?”
There was silence.
May you like
Then Maeve whispered the name.
“Judge Holloway.”
