Chapter 8 - Sunhaven
Sunhaven Neuro Recovery Center sat behind ten-foot fences and a line of cypress trees forty miles west of Miami.
It had no public website.
No sign marked the entrance.
Detective Mills requested a warrant.
The judge refused.
“The facility is privately licensed,” he said.
“They claim neither Patricia nor Sofía is inside.”
I stared at the dark gates.
“Then we enter another way.”
Mills looked at me.
“You cannot break into a medical facility.”
“They broke into my house.”
“That does not make it legal.”
Marina studied the building through binoculars.
“There is an ambulance entrance on the east side.”
“No,” Mills said.
“I know these facilities.”
“You were a student.”
“I completed a clinical rotation at a center owned by the same parent company.”
She pointed toward a service road.
“They use contract therapists at night.”
Mills shook his head.
“I cannot authorize this.”
“You do not have to,” I said.
He looked at me for several seconds.
Then he turned away.
“I’ll be requesting updated satellite records from my vehicle.”
Marina helped me transfer into the passenger seat of a medical transport van belonging to a friend from her university program.
She wore dark scrubs.
I wore a patient gown beneath a jacket.
“You are enjoying this,” I said.
“You look terrible.”
“That was not an answer.”
She drove us through the east gate.
The guard checked her temporary credentials.
He barely looked at me.
Inside, the facility smelled of antiseptic and old air.
Marina pushed my chair through a narrow corridor.
Locked doors lined both sides.
Some rooms were empty.
Others held patients staring silently at televisions.
“This place feels wrong,” she whispered.
We reached the administrative wing.
Voices came from behind a closed door.
Daniel was speaking.
“The custody hearing is in forty-eight hours.”
Another man answered.
Dr. Reeves.
“The medication will create enough confusion to support the psychiatric evaluation.”
My blood turned cold.
“On Patricia?”
“On the child’s statement.”
Marina covered her mouth.
Daniel continued.
“Sofía only needs to say her father frightened her.”
“She refuses.”
“Then increase the dose.”
I rolled forward.
Marina stopped me.
“We need proof.”
She activated the recorder on her phone and slid it beneath the door.
Dr. Reeves spoke again.
“The original spinal procedure already created questions.”
Daniel’s voice lowered.
“You were paid to make sure those questions disappeared.”
“I was paid to delay recovery.”
Silence filled the hallway.
Marina looked at me.
The words were worse than any diagnosis.
My paralysis had not only been the result of the fall.
Someone had deliberately interfered with my recovery.
A small cry came from a room at the end of the corridor.
“Daddy?”
I moved before Marina could stop me.
The door was locked.
I struck it with the side of my chair.
“Sofía!”
Footsteps rushed behind us.
Daniel opened the office door.
His face drained of color.
“You should not be here.”
I aimed the pistol from beneath my jacket.
“You should not have touched my daughter.”
Dr. Reeves backed away.
Daniel raised his hands.
“Eduardo, listen to me.”
The alarm began to sound.
Marina grabbed a key card from the wall.
She opened the room.
Sofía sat on a bed beside Patricia.
My daughter ran toward me.
“Daddy!”
I pulled her into my arms.
Patricia remained seated.
Her wrists were bruised.
“They locked me in,” she whispered.
Daniel stepped into the corridor.
“Security is coming.”
I looked at him.
“So are the police.”
Daniel smiled.
“No.”
May you like
“The police are waiting outside the wrong building.”
Then every light in the facility went out.
