Chapter 10 - The Restricted Floor
Emily refused to return home.
Daniel insisted that the house was compromised, but she no longer trusted his warnings or his protection.
She left the bakery with the police and took a taxi to the hospital.
Her shift did not begin until evening, but the building felt safer than anywhere else.
Bright lights.
Security guards.
Doctors and nurses moving constantly.
A place of rules.
At least, that was what she had believed.
She entered through the staff doors and used her own badge.
The mysterious keycard remained hidden inside her pocket.
The coordinates printed on it led to a service wing behind the oldest part of the hospital.
Emily knew the area.
Most of it had been closed after a fire damaged the electrical system six years earlier.
Operating Room 6 had once been located there.
She changed into scrubs and moved through the corridors as though beginning an ordinary shift.
No one questioned her.
At the end of the surgical floor, she found a door marked:
AUTHORIZED MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL ONLY
Her hospital badge failed.
The keycard from Claire unlocked it immediately.
Beyond the door, an unlit stairwell descended below the main building.
Emily switched on her phone flashlight.
Dust covered the steps, but several footprints looked recent.
At the bottom, she found a corridor lined with sealed rooms.
Old recovery rooms.
Storage units.
A records office.
Room numbers had been removed from most doors.
One still carried a faded metal plate.
OR-6
Emily pushed the door open.
The operating room had been stripped of equipment.
Only the overhead surgical light remained.
In the center of the floor stood a single hospital bed.
Fresh sheets.
Leather restraints.
A portable heart monitor still running.
Someone had used the room recently.
Emily approached the monitor.
The patient data had been erased, but the machine showed a previous recording from less than twelve hours earlier.
A stable pulse.
Then sudden cardiac arrest.
Then nothing.
She heard movement behind the observation glass.
A shadow passed through the adjoining room.
Emily turned off her flashlight.
The door handle moved.
She hid beneath the surgical table just as two men entered.
One wore a hospital administrator’s suit.
Emily recognized him immediately.
Dr. Victor Hale, director of medical operations.
The other man wore a gray coat.
The same man from the library.
“You should have taken her when you had the chance,” Hale said.
“She triggered the alarm.”
“And Daniel?”
“He is becoming unpredictable.”
Hale placed a folder on the bed.
“He was never supposed to marry her.”
Emily covered her mouth.
The man in gray looked toward the observation room.
“What about the new patient?”
“Transfer happens tonight.”
“Using Emily’s credentials?”
“Yes.”
Hale opened the folder.
Emily saw her own photograph inside.
May you like
Then he said, “By morning, every official record will show that Emily Carter died in this room.”
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