Chapter 5 - The House Beneath the City
The men outside did not try to enter the boardinghouse.
That frightened Claire more than if they had kicked down the door.
They stood beside the black sedan, speaking into their phones, as if they had all the time in the world. One leaned against the hood. The other watched the upstairs windows.
Detective Ortiz called for backup from a phone he said was secure. He gave no address, only a code and a request for two officers who had never worked with his unit.
“Are they Adrian's men?” Claire whispered.
“I don't know.”
“You said they found me.”
“I said they know you're here.”
“That sounds like the same thing.”
“Not in my line of work.”
Claire gripped the urn. She had refused to leave it behind when they fled the first hiding place, and she would not leave it now.
Ortiz noticed.
“Bring what you need,” he said. “Nothing else.”
“I need this.”
“Then bring it.”
They escaped through a service corridor behind the tailor shop. Ruth met them at the back entrance, carrying a small canvas bag and a set of keys.
“I knew this day would come,” she said.
Claire stared at her. “You knew someone was looking for me?”
“I knew someone might. You didn't tell me everything, and I didn't ask. But I heard two men asking questions about a woman with your description yesterday.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I didn't know whether it was a coincidence. Now I do.”
Ruth embraced Claire tightly.
“You keep breathing, sweetheart. That's the first job. Everything else comes after.”
Then she handed Claire the bag.
Inside were a change of clothes, a prepaid phone, and a folded note with an address written on it.
“Where is this?” Claire asked.
“A place your husband doesn't own.”
Ortiz studied the address. “An old community center?”
“Closed for renovations,” Ruth replied. “The basement connects to a service tunnel. The city sealed most of it years ago, but one section still opens into an underground parking structure.”
“You've used it before?”
Ruth raised an eyebrow. “Detective, do you really want the answer to that?”
For the first time since Sophie's death, Claire almost smiled.
They reached the community center in a borrowed van. The streets were wet with a cold October rain, and Chicago's traffic moved beneath a low ceiling of gray clouds. Claire watched the city through the window, searching every passing face for someone she knew.
At the center, Ortiz unlocked a side door and led them down a concrete staircase. The basement smelled of dust, damp wood, and old paint. He moved a stack of folding chairs and opened a narrow metal door behind a storage cabinet.
A tunnel stretched into darkness.
“Where does it go?” Claire asked.
“Under three city blocks. Eventually, it reaches a parking structure near the river.”
“Eventually?”
“It's an old utility route. Some sections are blocked. We'll use the parts that are open.”
They walked for nearly twenty minutes. Claire's arms ached from holding the urn. Twice, Ortiz stopped to listen. Once, they heard footsteps above them, followed by the muffled slam of a car door.
When they emerged, they were in the basement of a disused warehouse near the river.
A woman waited beside a folding table.
She was in her thirties, with short dark hair and a small scar running along her jaw. A laptop sat open in front of her, beside a stack of printed documents.
“Detective,” she said. “You took your time.”
“Traffic.”
“Underground?”
“Especially underground.”
The woman looked at Claire.
“I'm Naomi Brooks. I'm a federal investigator assigned to a financial-crimes task force. Ortiz told me you have evidence related to Meridian Clinical Solutions.”
Claire glanced at Ortiz. “You said you didn't know who to trust.”
“I don't,” he replied. “Naomi isn't on my department's chain of command. I know her work, not her entire life.”
“That's supposed to reassure me?”
“No. It's supposed to be honest.”
Naomi pushed a chair toward Claire.
“Let's start with the memory card.”
Claire handed it over but kept her fingers on the edge for a moment.
“Before you open it, I need to know what happened to Sophie.”
Naomi's expression softened.
“I can't promise you an answer today.”
“Then don't promise me anything. Tell me what you know.”
Naomi opened the files and examined the spreadsheet. As she scrolled, her face grew more serious.
“These payments are not ordinary medical reimbursements. Meridian received money from several companies connected to private clinics. Some of the transfers were routed through shell accounts.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means someone may have been paying for services they didn't want publicly recorded.”
“Services involving children?”
Naomi paused.
“We have evidence that Meridian handled confidential medical data from pediatric patients. We don't yet know whether those records were sold, altered, or used to influence treatment decisions.”
Claire felt a sharp ache beneath her ribs.
“Someone changed my daughter's records.”
“We'll establish who did it.”
“And the crash?”
Naomi opened the report Mercer had supplied. She compared its technical notes with the medical timeline and the vehicle records.
“Your husband’s SUV had a brake-system alert before the crash. That doesn't prove deliberate sabotage. But it does mean the vehicle needs a forensic examination.”
“It's already been examined.”
“By a contractor hired by your husband's company.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Of course.”
Naomi continued reading. “There's another issue. Vivian Cole appears in these files under a second name.”
“What name?”
Naomi turned the laptop toward her.
The screen displayed a scanned contract signed by a woman listed as Victoria Cale.
Claire stared at the signature.
It was Vivian's handwriting.
“What was she doing for Meridian?”
“We're still investigating. But she was paid to coordinate transportation for certain patients and their family members.”
“Transportation where?”
“Private facilities. Some outside Illinois.”
Claire remembered the secret trip. The flight Adrian had been rushing to catch. Vivian's frantic insistence that they move faster.
Perhaps the trip had been more than a romantic getaway.
“Can you find out where they were going?” Claire asked.
Naomi nodded. “We can try.”
She opened another file. A booking record appeared, listing a private charter flight scheduled for the afternoon of the crash. The destination field had been partially redacted.
But one word remained visible.
MONTROSE.
Claire frowned. “Montrose? In Colorado?”
“Possibly,” Naomi said. “Or a facility using that name.”
Ortiz leaned over the laptop. “The crash happened on the road to the airport.”
“Which means they may never have intended to board a commercial flight,” Naomi replied. “The charter might have been a cover.”
Claire looked from one investigator to the other.
“Adrian told me he had a business meeting that evening.”
“Did he tell you where?”
“No.”
Naomi searched the documents again.
Then she stopped.
A line of text appeared in the margin of an internal report. Most of it had been deleted, but a fragment remained.
Subject S.D. — transfer authorization pending.
Claire's fingers went numb.
“S.D.,” she whispered.
“Sophie DeLuca,” Ortiz said.
Naomi looked at her.
“Claire, was your daughter ever scheduled to be transferred to another hospital?”
“No. Never.”
“Are you certain?”
Claire remembered the private clinic. The canceled appointments. The medication changes. The doctors who had insisted that nothing was wrong.
Then she remembered something else.
Three weeks before the crash, Sophie had come into her bedroom in the middle of the night, clutching her stuffed rabbit.
“Mommy,” she had whispered, “why does Daddy say I have to go somewhere special?”
Claire had assumed Adrian was planning a surprise vacation. She had kissed Sophie’s forehead and told her not to worry.
Now she could barely stand.
Naomi enlarged the fragment on the screen.
“There's a date here,” she said. “The transfer authorization was entered the morning of the crash.”
Claire stared at the screen.
“What was the destination?”
Naomi tried to recover the deleted text.
For a moment, the screen flickered.
Then a partial address appeared.
A private medical facility in northern Wisconsin.
Before Naomi could copy it, every light in the warehouse went out.
A heavy metal door slammed somewhere behind them.
Ortiz drew his weapon.
Naomi closed the laptop.
From the darkness, a voice called out.
“Claire DeLuca.”
May you like
A pause.
“We know what happened to your daughter.”
