Chapter 6 - Smoke on the Seventh Floor.
Patients poured into the corridor as nurses shouted evacuation instructions.
Smoke blurred the red emergency lights and turned every moving figure into a shadow.
Dana pushed Mara’s wheelchair with one hand and guided Evelyn with the other.
The public elevators were disabled.
The stairwell required Mara to abandon the wheelchair and place weight on her shattered leg.
“There’s a service lift through radiology,” Dana said.
They moved against the crowd.
Mara glanced back and saw the fake guard from Lena’s room following them.
His dark hospital jacket bulged at the waist.
“He’s behind us.”
Dana cut into an imaging room and locked the door.
The guard struck it from the other side.
Evelyn searched for another exit while Mara pulled out the trust letter.
“What were you going to show me?”
Evelyn opened her briefcase.
The inner pocket was empty.
Her face tightened.
“A brass key.”
“Who knew you had it?”
“Only Caleb Grant.”
The pounding stopped.
Silence outside felt more dangerous than noise.
Dana opened a cabinet and removed a pair of aluminum crutches.
“The imaging tunnel connects to the next room.”
Mara stared at the narrow bore of the magnetic resonance scanner.
“You want me to crawl through that?”
“Unless you prefer the man at the door.”
Dana helped Mara onto the table.
Every inch forward sent fire through her braced leg.
Halfway through the tunnel, the door burst open.
The guard grabbed Dana and threw her into the wall.
Evelyn struck him with the briefcase, but he pulled a pistol from beneath his jacket.
“Give me the letter,” he said.
Mara folded it against her chest.
The guard aimed at Dana.
“Now.”
Evelyn tossed the briefcase toward him.
When his eyes dropped, Dana slammed the emergency magnet control.
A metal oxygen stand flew across the room and struck the guard’s arm.
The pistol tore from his hand and crashed against the scanner housing.
Dana dragged Mara through the far side while Evelyn held the connecting door.
They reached a freight elevator and descended to the basement loading dock.
Officer Grant waited beside an unmarked car.
Evelyn marched toward him.
“The key was stolen from my case.”
Grant looked genuinely startled.
“I never told anyone about a key.”
“You were the only person who knew.”
Mara noticed soot on his collar, although he had been waiting outside.
Grant opened the rear door.
“Get in before they find you.”
Dana did not move.
Her gaze had settled on the front passenger seat.
The missing brass key lay beside Grant’s phone.
Evelyn stepped between Grant and the wheelchair.
Her briefcase had been torn open, and soot streaked one sleeve of her suit.
“You have thirty seconds to explain,” she said.
Grant looked up the loading ramp, where sirens echoed between concrete walls.
Two local patrol cars turned into the garage above them.
Instead of relief, his face showed alarm.
“Those units were never dispatched by the state,” he said.
He pressed a button that lowered the loading gate.
Metal slammed down as the patrol cars accelerated toward them.
Whoever Grant truly served, the people arriving with police lights appeared determined to reach Mara first.
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THE POISONED TRUTH
