Chapter 11 - Plan B.
.The emergency lights came on three seconds after the hallway went dark.
Three seconds was enough to change the building.
Nurses stepped from rooms.
Patients called out.
The fire alarm repeated its mechanical warning.
Rebecca was already on her feet.
She locked Emma’s bed wheels and moved toward the door.
“Stay behind me.”
Emma gripped the blanket.
“Mom, what’s happening?”
“I don’t know yet.”
That was the only answer Rebecca trusted.
Lena appeared in the doorway carrying a flashlight.
“There’s no smoke on this floor.”
“Then why the alarm?”
“System says electrical room, east wing.”
Agent Chen emerged from the stairwell at the same moment.
Her phone was pressed to her ear.
“Backup generator is active.”
Rebecca looked toward the darkened security desk.
“Cameras?”
“Some feeds dropped during the transition.”
Rebecca remembered the message.
IF MOTHER ARRIVES, MOVE TO PLAN B.
She told Chen.
The agent’s expression sharpened.
“Lock this room down.”
Before the door could close, two orderlies pushed an empty gurney around the corner.
Their uniforms looked correct.
Their movement did not.
One looked directly at Emma’s room before reading any door number.
Rebecca noticed.
So did Chen.
“Stop there,” Chen said.
The men stopped.
One smiled nervously.
“Emergency transfer.”
“For whom?”
“Patient Hale.”
Emma made a frightened sound.
Rebecca stepped fully into the doorway.
“Transfer ordered by whom?”
The second man looked at a clipboard.
“Dr. Reeve.”
Lena shook her head.
“No transfer order appears in the system.”
The first man reached into his pocket.
Chen’s hand moved toward her badge side.
“Keep your hands visible.”
He slowly produced an identification card.
It was a hospital contractor badge.
Expired eleven months earlier.
Neither man was an orderly.
Hospital security arrived from the stairwell and detained them without resistance.
One immediately asked for a lawyer.
The other asked to call Martin Crowe.
Rebecca’s stomach turned.
Plan B had been a transfer.
Not out of the hospital system.
Out of sight.
Within fifteen minutes, the fire alarm was traced to a manual pull station near an electrical service room.
No fire had occurred.
A camera on another floor showed Crowe entering the stairwell minutes before the alarm.
His current location was unknown.
Then Paul Ivers called Chen.
He had recovered another deleted file from Emma’s smartphone.
It was a photograph taken accidentally while the phone was inside Emma’s purse.
Most of the image was dark fabric.
But in one corner, a handwritten transfer form was visible.
Destination: WESTBROOK BEHAVIORAL CENTER.
Emma stared at the name.
“I’ve never heard of it.”
Lena had.
“It’s private.”
“Where?” Rebecca asked.
“About forty miles north.”
Agent Chen searched quickly.
Westbrook Behavioral Center was owned by a holding company.
The holding company belonged to another holding company.
At the end of the chain sat Mercer Health Foundation.
Emma’s face went white.
“They were going to move me to their own facility.”
Rebecca looked at the expired badge, the empty gurney, and the false transfer form.
“Yes.”
Emma’s voice shook.
“And if you hadn’t come?”
Rebecca had no answer that could make the question easier.
She sat beside her daughter and held her hand.
Outside the room, Agent Chen received another call.
Her expression changed.
Martin Crowe had just been found.
He was not fleeing the hospital.
May you like
He was waiting in the executive parking level beside Victoria Mercer’s car.
And in his hand was a folder labeled REBECCA HALE.
