CHAPTER 5 – THE BLACKOUT
CHAPTER 5 – THE BLACKOUT
Marcus entered the room so quickly that he nearly slipped.
The fetal monitor had been disconnected.
One intravenous line hung from the bed, dripping onto the floor.
The window remained sealed.
The bathroom was empty.
Khloe was gone.
“Khloe!”
No answer.
Adrian rushed in behind him.
He examined the room once, then spoke into his radio.
“Close every stairwell. Lock the elevators. No one leaves the building.”
Marcus grabbed him.
“How did someone take her?”
Adrian pushed his hand away.
“Let me work.”
“She can barely walk.”
“That means they needed equipment.”
Adrian looked at the floor.
A narrow wheel mark crossed the polished tile.
“Transport chair,” he said.
He followed the marks into the hall.
They ended near a service elevator.
The elevator indicator was dark.
Adrian opened a wall panel and examined the emergency controls.
“Someone manually released it.”
Marcus stared at the metal doors.
“Where does it go?”
“Every floor, including the underground loading dock.”
Marcus’s face turned cold.
“They planned this.”
“Yes.”
The power returned after forty-six seconds.
The service elevator display flashed.
B2.
Adrian pressed the call button.
Nothing happened.
“They disabled it from below.”
Marcus ran toward the stairwell.
Adrian followed.
Two security officers joined them.
They descended one floor at a time, moving through concrete corridors illuminated by dim emergency lamps.
On the basement level, Marcus heard wheels moving ahead.
“Khloe!”
A metal door slammed.
They reached the loading area seconds later.
A white medical van was speeding toward the exit gate.
Marcus ran directly into its path.
The driver swerved.
The van struck a stack of empty supply carts, sending metal crashing across the floor.
Security officers surrounded the vehicle.
The driver jumped out and tried to flee.
Adrian tackled him before he reached the stairwell.
Marcus pulled open the rear doors.
A woman sat inside a transport chair wearing a hospital gown.
Her head hung forward.
“Khloe.”
He climbed inside.
Then he stopped.
The woman was not Khloe.
She was an unconscious hospital employee dressed in Khloe’s gown.
A decoy.
Adrian dragged the driver toward the van.
“Where is she?”
The man said nothing.
Adrian searched his pockets and found a hospital access badge.
It belonged to Dr. Aaron Vale, a physician who had not worked there in five years.
Marcus looked around.
“If the van was a distraction, where did they take Khloe?”
Adrian turned toward the opposite side of the loading bay.
A second set of wheel marks led toward the laundry tunnels.
They followed the tracks through a narrow corridor beneath the hospital.
The air smelled of detergent and hot metal.
Ahead, a door stood open.
Marcus heard a muffled voice.
He ran inside.
Khloe lay on a laundry cart beneath white sheets, struggling against a masked man who held a syringe.
Marcus struck him before he could inject her.
The man crashed into a washing machine.
The syringe rolled across the floor.
A second attacker emerged from behind the door.
Adrian blocked his arm, twisted it behind his back and forced him to the ground.
Marcus lifted the first man by the collar.
“Who sent you?”
The attacker smiled through a split lip.
“You already know.”
Marcus hit him again.
“Name.”
“Ask your mother.”
Marcus froze.
The hesitation gave the man an opening.
He reached for a small blade hidden inside his sleeve.
Khloe saw it.
“Marcus!”
Marcus turned aside just before the blade reached him.
Adrian slammed the attacker’s wrist against the machine until the weapon fell.
Security officers arrived and restrained both men.
Marcus rushed to Khloe.
“Did they hurt you?”
“I don’t know.”
She was shaking violently.
“They put something over my face.”
Adrian picked up the syringe with a gloved hand.
“We need toxicology.”
Khloe grabbed Marcus’s sleeve.
“The baby.”
“We’re taking you upstairs.”
“No.”
Her eyes filled with panic.
“Not to that room.”
Marcus understood.
“You’ll have a secure wing.”
Adrian nodded.
“No one enters without my authorization.”
As they lifted Khloe onto a stretcher, one of the attackers began laughing.
Marcus turned.
“What is funny?”
The man looked directly at Eleanor, who had just arrived with Detective Morales.
“You really don’t know, do you?”
Eleanor’s face hardened.
“Know what?”
The man leaned back against the wall.
“This was never about taking the woman.”
He looked toward the recovered syringe.
“It was about what she knows.”
Khloe stared at him.
“I don’t know anything.”
The attacker smiled.
“Your father did.”
The room fell silent.
Khloe’s father had died when she was twelve.
A car accident.
At least, that was what she had always believed.
Adrian stepped toward the man.
“What did Daniel know?”
The smile disappeared.
“Enough to die.”
Khloe looked at her uncle.
May you like
Adrian’s face revealed the answer before he spoke.
Her father’s death had never been an accident.
