Chapter 14 - The Woman Beneath the Hospital
The transmission vanished beneath static.
Claire pressed the scanner to her mouth.
“Elias, answer me.”
Nothing.
The officers outside advanced toward the bus with weapons raised.
Harris held his injured chest.
“We can’t stay here.”
The street behind us remained open for half a block, but another cruiser turned into view.
The bus was being boxed in.
Mason looked toward the rear exit.
“We can run through the alley.”
“With twenty passengers?” I asked.
He looked away.
A deep vibration traveled through the floor.
At first, I thought the engine had stalled.
Then the vibration came again, stronger, from beneath the street.
Claire gripped a yellow pole.
“What is that?”
Harris glanced toward the hospital.
“Service tunnel.”
Chicago’s older hospitals shared underground utility routes with parking structures, supply docks, and abandoned transit corridors. St. Vincent’s loading level sat below the emergency wing.
Something heavy was moving through it.
The scanner crackled.
“Underground transfer in progress.”
Mara’s voice followed.
“Seal all street exits.”
I looked at the hospital loading dock entrance one block east.
A steel gate was rising.
A black medical transport van emerged from below.
No lights.
No markings.
The front passenger wore a hospital security uniform.
The driver wore a police jacket.
In the rear window, a pale hand struck the glass once.
Then vanished.
“Nora,” I said.
Claire heard me.
She stepped toward the windshield.
The officers outside shouted for her to move back.
The transport van accelerated toward the opposite intersection.
If it reached the lower expressway entrance, it would disappear into traffic within minutes.
Harris turned the bus wheel.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Giving you a chance.”
He pressed the accelerator.
The bus surged forward.
The officers scattered as twelve tons of steel pushed between the cruisers. One vehicle scraped along our side, tearing away a mirror.
Passengers braced against seats and rails.
We followed the transport van.
The scanner filled with urgent commands.
“Bus moving east.”
“Block Michigan.”
“Authorize tire disablement.”
Mara cut across them.
“No shots near the transport.”
That confirmed the person inside mattered.
Maybe Nora.
Maybe someone they wanted me to believe was Nora.
Claire held the flash drive against her chest.
“The recording might tell us.”
“We can’t open it.”
“Cole’s wristband code and a voice sample.”
“Whose voice?”
She looked toward Ranger’s harness.
“I thought it was Cole’s.”
“And now?”
“Maybe yours.”
The bus gained on the van as traffic slowed near the river.
Harris fought to keep the wheel steady. Blood had appeared beneath his sleeve where the electrical projectile had struck him.
“You’re fading,” I said.
“I can make the bridge.”
The transport van swerved onto a service road.
We followed.
Ahead, the raised bridge lights flashed.
The roadway was preparing to open for river traffic.
Mara’s team intended to cross before it lifted and trap us on the near side.
Cal watched the scanner display.
“We have forty seconds.”
The van struck a barricade and forced through.
Harris aligned the bus.
Passengers shouted warnings.
“Hold on,” he said.
The bus smashed through the weakened barricade.
Metal folded beneath the bumper.
We reached the bridge as warning gates descended behind us.
The transport van stopped unexpectedly at the center.
Its rear doors opened.
A woman in a hospital gown stepped out barefoot.
Gray streaked her dark hair. Her face was thin. One wrist carried a plastic medical band.
Even at a distance, I knew the shape of her eyes.
“Nora.”
She looked at the bus.
Then she raised both hands.
A man stepped out behind her and pressed a gun against her back.
He wore a Navy officer’s coat.
On his collar was the insignia of Lieutenant Aaron Pike—Ranger’s handler, the man I had watched die during Night Harbor.
Ranger saw him.
For the first time all night, he barked.
One sharp, explosive sound.
Pike smiled through the windshield and lifted a small black drive in his free hand.
The canine drive.
Then he shouted across the bridge.
May you like
“Bring me the dog, Noah, or your sister goes into the river.”
📖 See why Ranger recognizes a supposedly dead handler—and what Noah must sacrifice when the bridge begins rising in CHAPTER 15. 👇
