Chapter 2 - ROOM NINETEENWithin minutes, hospital security locked down every exit.

Daniel Harris was gone.

His cell phone went straight to voicemail.

His car was still parked outside.

Which meant he had either left on foot or someone had picked him up.

Neither possibility made me feel better.

Emily was in surgery.

Her condition was deteriorating rapidly.

The surgeons found extensive tissue necrosis, deep infection, and damage caused by prolonged compression around her wrist and forearm.

Someone had wrapped her arm tightly.

Very tightly.

And then hidden the damage under a cast.

But the strange note bothered me more.

DON’T TRUST HIM.

And Emily’s final words.

Basement. Room nineteen.

Marcus returned twenty minutes later.

“I found something.”

He dropped a file on the desk.

“Hospital archives?”

I opened it.

Nothing.

“Room nineteen doesn’t exist in this hospital.”

“Exactly.”

I looked up.

“What did you find?”

Marcus lowered his voice.

“Our building had a basement before the east wing renovation. Old maintenance records show a numbered section under the original emergency department.”

He pointed to a floor plan.

“Rooms one through twenty-four.”

I stared.

“The basement was sealed eleven years ago.”

“Why?”

Marcus hesitated.

“Water damage.”

“That’s it?”

“According to the official report.”

We looked at each other.

That phrase was doing a lot of work.

I grabbed my coat.

“We’re going down there.”

Marcus stared at me.

“Sarah, the hospital administrator will kill us.”

“Then he can do it after I figure out why a dying woman knew about a sealed room.”

We reached the old basement entrance.

The door had a rusted padlock.

Marcus broke it with a maintenance bar.

The smell hit us immediately.

Mold.

Dust.

And something faintly chemical.

We moved down the corridor.

The old hospital looked like a skeleton.

Paint peeled from the walls.

Broken lights hung from ceilings.

Old stretchers leaned against corners.

Room numbers appeared one after another.

Then 19.

The door was locked.

Marcus looked at me.

“This is insane.”

I tried the handle.

Locked.

Then I noticed a small rectangular hole near the door.

A keypad.

My stomach tightened.

This room had not been abandoned.

Not really.

I entered several guesses.

Nothing.

Then I remembered the cast.

The month.

The old bruises.

Emily's note.

I typed her date of birth.

Beep.

Unlocked.

The door opened.

We stepped inside.

The room was spotless.

That was the terrifying part.

No mold.

No dust.

Fresh flooring.

A stainless-steel table.

A medical sink.

A refrigerator.

On the wall was a collection of photographs.

Women.

Dozens of them.

Each photograph had a name beneath it.

Some had dates.

Some had red marks across their faces.

Marcus whispered.

“What the hell is this?”

I moved closer.

The women were patients.

Most appeared to be between twenty-five and forty.

Several had visible injuries.

Bruises.

Casts.

Bandages.

I scanned the names.

Then froze.

One of them was Emily Harris.

Under her photograph was a date.

04/17.

Next to it:

COMPLIANT.

Another:

05/02.

NONCOMPLIANT.

Marcus pointed at a second photograph.

“Sarah.”

I turned.

The woman in the photograph looked familiar.

Very familiar.

I couldn't place her.

Then I saw the name.

Megan Price.

My heart stopped.

Megan had been my patient six months earlier.

She'd come into the emergency department with unexplained fractures and insisted she'd fallen off a ladder.

Two days later, she disappeared from follow-up.

I had thought she simply moved.

Now her photo was on a wall in a hidden basement room.

I stepped toward it.

There was a red circle around her face.

And beneath it:

TRANSFERRED.

A sound came from behind us.

Metal scraping.

Marcus spun around.

The door was closing.

We ran.

The lock clicked.

“Open it!”

Marcus slammed his shoulder against it.

Nothing.

Then the lights went out.

Total darkness.

I felt something cold brush my neck.

A whisper came from directly behind me.

“You shouldn't have come down here.”

Marcus shouted.

I spun around.

No one.

Then my phone buzzed.

Unknown number.

One text.

YOU WERE WARNED.

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