Chapter 2 - The Hospital Had Been Waiting for Me
The gunshot downstairs was followed by three more.
Patients screamed.
Footsteps thundered through the hallway.
Someone shouted for security, but the command was swallowed by another burst of gunfire.
Dominic moved faster than a wounded man should have been able to.
He grabbed my arm and pulled me behind the heavy hospital bed.
"Stay here."
"You're bleeding."
"I've been bleeding all day."
"That doesn't mean you should walk around."
He looked at me with the faintest trace of amusement.
"Still giving orders."
"Someone has to."
Another shot cracked through the corridor.
Dominic's expression changed.
The humor disappeared.
"Marcus."
His lieutenant immediately stepped inside.
"The east stairwell is compromised."
"How many?"
"At least six."
Dominic glanced at me.
"Take Grace to the service elevator."
I stared at him.
"I'm not leaving."
His eyebrow lifted.
"You're arguing with me while men with guns are invading your hospital."
"It's my hospital too."
"Exactly."
He stepped closer.
"Which means whoever is doing this knows that."
Marcus handed him a handgun.
I stared at the weapon.
"You're supposed to be recovering."
Dominic checked the chamber.
"I recovered enough."
We moved through the private floor while alarms flashed red.
My hospital, the place where I had worked for four years, suddenly looked unfamiliar.
Doors I knew were locked.
Hallways I had walked through every morning were dark.
Patients had been moved into side rooms.
At the end of the corridor, a man's body lay beside the nurses' station.
I stopped.
It was Harold, one of the night security guards.
My stomach twisted.
Dominic put a hand on my shoulder.
"Don't look."
Too late.
I had already seen his eyes.
"Who would do this?"
"The kind of person who believes fear works."
We reached the service elevator.
Marcus pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
He pressed it again.
"Power's been cut."
Dominic looked toward the stairwell.
"Plan B."
The doors suddenly opened.
A woman stood inside.
She wore blue surgical scrubs and a mask.
She raised her hand.
"Grace."
I knew that voice.
Dr. Naomi Foster.
My supervisor.
"What are you doing here?"
Her eyes shifted toward Dominic.
"Trying to get you out."
Dominic's gun remained pointed toward her.
"How convenient."
Naomi stiffened.
"I don't know who you are, Mr. Vale, but the men downstairs are killing hospital staff."
Dominic didn't lower his weapon.
"Yet you somehow found us."
"I know the hospital."
"So do I."
Naomi looked at me.
"Grace, tell him."
I didn't know what to say.
Then I noticed something.
There was blood on Naomi's left sleeve.
Not much.
But enough.
"You're hurt."
She glanced at her arm.
"It's not mine."
The elevator chimed.
We stepped inside.
Naomi pressed the basement level.
When the doors shut, no one spoke.
Then Naomi looked at me.
"They found the old records."
My heartbeat accelerated.
"What old records?"
"The cardiac archive from seven years ago."
Dominic's eyes narrowed.
"What was in it?"
Naomi hesitated.
"Your mother's records."
My breath caught.
"What happened to them?"
"Someone removed them years ago."
"Who?"
She looked directly at Dominic.
"Anthony Vale."
Silence.
Dominic's face became completely still.
"My father?"
Naomi nodded.
"He came here two nights before your father disappeared."
"I was told my father vanished from Boston."
"He did."
"But he was here."
"He was."
The elevator suddenly stopped.
We all froze.
The lights flickered.
Naomi whispered, "They're in the basement."
Dominic raised his weapon.
"How many?"
"Don't know."
Then the elevator doors were forced open.
A gunman stood outside.
Dominic fired once.
The man dropped.
Marcus fired at another figure.
We ran.
The basement was freezing.
Rows of old storage rooms stretched beneath the hospital.
Naomi grabbed my hand.
"This way."
"Where?"
"The archive."
We reached a steel door.
Naomi entered a code.
The lock clicked.
Inside were boxes.
Hundreds of them.
Dominic scanned the room.
"Why would your hospital keep records this old?"
Naomi swallowed.
"Because some files were never meant to exist."
She walked to the back wall.
There was a narrow cabinet.
She removed a false panel.
Behind it sat a single black box.
My initials were written on top.
G.W.
I stared.
"No."
Dominic opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
My mother.
Anthony Vale.
And a third person standing between them.
A man whose face I recognized instantly.
Dr. Samuel Hart.
The current chief administrator of St. Bartholomew's.
I shook my head.
"That can't be real."
Dominic turned the photograph over.
A handwritten note covered the back.
If Grace ever returns to St. Bartholomew's, do not let Hart find her.
I couldn't breathe.
"Why would my mother write that?"
Dominic looked at Naomi.
"Who is Hart?"
Naomi answered quietly.
"The man who controlled the hospital's private records division seven years ago."
"Did he know my mother?"
"He knew everyone involved."
A sound came from outside.
Footsteps.
Naomi quickly grabbed another folder.
"We have to go."
Marcus opened the door.
Three gunmen were approaching.
Dominic shoved me behind him.
Gunfire erupted.
We ran through another exit and eventually reached the underground garage.
Two black SUVs waited.
Dominic pushed me into one.
Marcus took the wheel.
Naomi climbed into the back.
As we sped away, I looked back at the hospital.
Smoke drifted from an upper floor.
My workplace was burning.
And I finally understood.
This wasn't about Dominic Vale.
It had never been only about him.
May you like
Someone had been waiting seven years for me to walk back through those doors.
And now they knew I had seen the photograph.
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