Chapter 10 - The Locked Hospital Floor
The hospital immediately locked down the maternity floor.
Police guarded every elevator and stairwell.
Daniel refused to leave Elena and Hope.
Victoria had already entered the building before the lockdown began.
Security footage showed her wearing a volunteer’s coat and carrying an identification card belonging to a missing hospital employee.
“She has help,” Brooks said over the phone.
“How many people?”
“We don’t know.”
Daniel looked at Elena.
She held Hope tightly while nurses prepared to move them into a secure room.
“No more closed doors,” Elena said.
“What?”
“When they sedated me, they locked me in the nursery. I don’t want to be trapped again.”
Daniel understood.
They moved Elena to a monitored nurses’ station surrounded by staff and officers.
Victoria could no longer isolate her.
Five minutes later, the fire alarm sounded.
Sprinklers activated in the east wing.
Hospital staff began directing patients toward the elevators.
“It’s a diversion,” Daniel said.
A police officer ordered everyone to remain in place.
Then the power flickered.
The emergency lights turned red.
A woman in scrubs approached carrying an infant transport bassinet.
“We need to move the baby because of the alarm.”
Elena immediately pulled Hope closer.
“No.”
The woman reached forward.
Daniel stepped between them.
“What department are you from?”
“Neonatal transport.”
“Show me your identification.”
She hesitated.
Daniel grabbed the bassinet and pushed it aside.
The woman ran.
An officer caught her near the stairwell.
Inside her bag were sedatives, forged discharge papers, and a passport containing Hope’s photograph under another name.
Victoria planned to remove the baby from the country.
The woman refused to speak.
But her phone contained a live message.
Bring the child to the underground ambulance bay.
Daniel looked at Brooks.
“Victoria is waiting downstairs.”
Police moved toward the basement.
Elena caught Daniel’s hand.
“Don’t go.”
“I’m staying with you.”
“But she’ll escape.”
Daniel looked at Hope.
For most of his life, Victoria had controlled him by making every crisis feel like a test of loyalty.
He would not let her do it again.
“The police can arrest her,” he said. “My place is here.”
Victoria waited in the underground bay for a baby who never arrived.
When officers surrounded her car, they found it empty.
The driver’s seat was still warm.
A service tunnel led from the garage to an abandoned medical office across the street.
Victoria had escaped again.
But this time, she left something behind.
A portable cooler containing vials from Dr. Reeves’s clinic.
One vial carried Elena’s name.
Another carried Hope’s.
May you like
Victoria had planned separate doses for mother and child.
👉 The labels on those vials led investigators to a private clinic where Victoria had hidden years of medical crimes.
