Chapter 4 - Gabriel’s Sister Was Alive, and Her Voice on the Recording Exposed a Secret Hospital
At the hospital, Reyes placed an officer outside Gabriel's room.
He didn't put me in handcuffs.
Not yet.
The doctors stabilized Gabriel.
They took over his care.
For the first time all night, I could sit.
My hands wouldn't stop trembling.
Mara sat opposite me.
“Clara is alive,” she said.
“Then whose death certificate is in my name?”
“That's what we have to find out.”
Reyes brought a forensic technician.
The capsule contained a miniature memory device.
It had been sealed against moisture.
A recording opened on the technician's laptop.
Clara's voice filled the room.
“If you're hearing this, Vincent knows.”
She sounded exhausted.
But unmistakably alive.
“He's using the hospital to move people.”
A pause.
“Some are witnesses. Some are patients.”
Her voice cracked.
“None of them agreed to disappear.”
I looked at Mara.
She covered her mouth.
Clara continued.
“The records are stored beneath the old children's wing.”
The recording ended with a scrape.
Then a man's voice.
“Clara, get away from the door.”
Lucas stood in the doorway behind us.
He had heard everything.
“There's no children's wing anymore,” he said.
“Vincent demolished it.”
Reyes opened a property map.
The building had been demolished on paper.
But satellite images showed the roof intact.
“We go with a warrant,” Reyes said.
Lucas shook his head.
“By morning, he'll move them.”
“Then we call the judge now.”
I stood.
“I want to come.”
Reyes refused.
I didn't argue.
Instead, I asked for my phone.
A message waited from an unknown number.
It showed a photograph of Clara.
She was strapped to a hospital bed.
May you like
Below it were six words.
BRING THE NURSE OR SHE DIES.
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