Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN THEY TOOK FROM THE HOSPITAL
“Where did they take my mother?”
Emma tried to get out of bed.
Pain shot across her face, and she grabbed the railing.
I caught her before she fell.
“Emma, stop. You'll hurt yourself.”
“She could die out there!”
“I know.”
“No, you don't!”
She pulled her arm away.
“You have guards and cars and people who do whatever you say. My mother has a plastic hospital bracelet and a body that's barely strong enough to fight cancer.”
Tears ran down her cheeks.
“They took her because of me.”
I knelt beside her bed.
“No. They took her because somebody is afraid of what she knows.”
“Then bring her back.”
There was no anger left in her voice.
Only a daughter's terror.
I looked directly at her.
“I will do everything I can.”
Then I turned to Marco.
“Find that transport.”
Ben was already working.
He had access to his mother's authorized patient portal because he helped manage her appointments.
The hospital had entered a transport reference number before removing her room assignment.
“They forgot to clear the contractor code,” he said.
He enlarged the screen.
“Look.”
Eastbank Medical Transport.
The same company connected to the Pier Nine redevelopment.
Marco contacted the hospital's transport coordinator while I went downstairs with Lucia.
The first employee insisted the ambulance had taken Helen to a rehabilitation center.
But the address led to a vacant office building.
The second employee claimed the transfer had been approved by the patient's family.
“Her family is upstairs demanding to know where she is,” I told him.
He stopped talking.
Within minutes, hospital security began preserving the loading-dock footage.
The cameras showed Helen being wheeled through a service entrance.
She was wearing her knitted cap.
Her hands were folded over a thin hospital blanket.
Two men loaded her into an unmarked medical transport van.
One wore a dark coat.
The other had a snake tattoo on his wrist.
I recognized him immediately.
Kolov's man.
The same one who had helped beat Emma.
Marco studied the van's registration.
“It belongs to Eastbank.”
“Can we locate it?”
“The transport contractor has a dispatch office.”
“Then we go there.”
Ben refused to stay out of the investigation.
“I know how Mom thinks,” he said. “And I know something about that construction map.”
I looked at his wheelchair.
Then at the determination on his face.
“You stay somewhere secure while we check it.”
“Don't talk to me like I'm twelve.”
“I'm not.”
“Then listen.”
He opened the map he'd been studying.
“The old Pier Nine warehouse has a covered vehicle entrance. They're planning to convert it into a medical loading area.”
Marco leaned closer.
“Big enough for a van?”
“Easily.”
“Any other access?”
“A gate on the east side.”
Ben looked at me.
“If they're keeping Mom somewhere temporarily, that's the first place I'd check.”
I nodded.
“Good work.”
His shoulders loosened slightly.
He wasn't asking to be protected from every hard thing.
He wanted to help protect his mother.
I sent him back to Emma with a copy of the route map and stayed in contact.
Then Marco and I left with two vehicles.
We reached the waterfront shortly before sunset.
The demolition equipment remained parked behind security fencing.
The permit suspension had stopped the machines.
But it hadn't stopped the people controlling the property.
An unmarked medical transport van stood beneath the loading canopy.
Two men were beside it.
One smoked a cigarette.
The other watched the road.
We stayed back and contacted the detectives already investigating Caleb Mercer's assault on Emma.
They were coordinating with the fire investigators, but getting personnel into position would take time.
I wasn't willing to let Helen disappear again.
Marco watched through binoculars.
“Van's occupied.”
“Can you see her?”
“Not clearly.”
Then the loading door opened.
Viktor Kolov stepped into view.
He was taller than I remembered, with graying hair and a deep scar beside his jaw.
I hadn't spoken to him face-to-face in six years.
He looked toward our vehicles.
And smiled.
“He knows we're here,” Marco said.
I stepped out.
Kolov waited beside the van.
“You came quickly, Dominic.”
“Where's Helen Carter?”
“Safe enough.”
“She's a sick woman.”
“She knows things my family has wanted answers about for eighteen years.”
“Then ask me.”
He laughed bitterly.
“Your father made certain I never got answers from him.”
“Your sister died in that fire.”
His expression changed.
“Anna was twenty-six.”
“I know.”
“She worked two jobs. She sent money to our mother every Friday. She believed people were basically decent.”
Kolov stared past me at the warehouse.
“Then somebody chained four people inside a burning building.”
I kept my voice steady.
“Helen says someone authorized a payment before the fire.”
“Your father.”
“Possibly. But Samuel Bell handled the accounts.”
Kolov's eyes narrowed.
“Samuel told me Enzo ordered the warehouse cleared for insurance money.”
My pulse quickened.
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“Did Samuel show you the original records?”
Kolov hesitated.
“He showed me copies.”
That mattered.
Samuel had controlled the documents.
Samuel had managed the compensation.
And Samuel now stood to profit from the property's redevelopment.
But Kolov wasn't interested in my suspicions.
“Your father killed my sister.”
“And you nearly killed Emma.”
He looked away.
“Those men were supposed to frighten her.”
“They broke her ribs.”
“I didn't order that.”
“You sent them.”
His jaw hardened.
“I won't pretend I didn't.”
It was the closest thing to accountability I'd ever heard from Viktor Kolov.
But it wasn't enough.
“Let Helen go.”
“When I get the original payment records.”
“We found copies.”
“I want the originals. The ones showing who authorized the fire.”
“Those may not exist.”
“Then Helen stays with me.”
I stepped closer.
“She needs her medication.”
Kolov looked toward the van.
For a moment, grief seemed to replace his anger.
“My sister needed help, too.”
“And now you're making another innocent family suffer.”
He didn't answer.
A movement inside the van caught my eye.
Helen was watching through the window.
She raised one trembling hand.
Then pointed.
Not at Kolov.
At the warehouse office.
I followed her gesture.
Samuel Bell stood behind a cracked window.
Watching us.
My stomach tightened.
Kolov noticed my expression.
He turned.
Samuel stepped back out of sight.
“Why is he here?” I asked.
Kolov looked irritated.
“He's managing the transfer.”
“Your sister's compensation was reversed eighteen years ago,” I said. “Samuel approved that reversal.”
Kolov went still.
“What?”
“Her name appears in the original relief account.”
“That's a lie.”
“Anna's family was approved for compensation. The payment was diverted.”
He stared at me.
Then looked toward the office.
For the first time, he seemed to wonder whether Samuel had been telling him the truth.
A horn sounded near the eastern gate.
Police vehicles were entering the access road.
Kolov's men turned.
Marco moved toward the transport van with the detectives.
The man with the snake tattoo tried to run.
He made it only a few yards before an officer stopped him.
Kolov stood motionless.
Then he stepped aside.
“Get the woman out.”
Helen was exhausted and frightened, but conscious.
A paramedic examined her inside the van.
Her medication had been withheld for several hours, leaving her weak and nauseated.
I helped move her into the ambulance that would return her to St. Catherine's.
She caught my sleeve.
“Samuel?”
“We know he's involved.”
“No,” she whispered. “You don't understand.”
“What don't I understand?”
“He didn't just take the money.”
She struggled for breath.
“He changed the orders.”
“What orders?”
“The security orders. The night of the fire.”
My hands went cold.
I remembered signing the transfer form.
I remembered moving the guards.
Helen looked at me with terrible sadness.
“Your father told you it was routine.”
“Yes.”
“He told everyone that.”
She closed her eyes.
“Samuel added something after you signed.”
Before she could explain, a detective approached carrying a folder recovered from the warehouse office.
“Mr. Castellano, you need to see this.”
Inside was a carbon copy of the security order from eighteen years earlier.
My signature appeared at the bottom.
But beneath the instruction to move the guards was another line.
SEAL SECONDARY ACCESS, BAY FOUR, UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
The document made it appear that I had ordered the emergency exit secured.
I stared at it.
Helen reached for my hand.
“I saw Samuel take that paper from your father's desk.”
My throat tightened.
The detective looked at me.
“Mr. Castellano, did you sign this order?”
I looked at the name beneath the instructions.
Mine.
Then I answered.
“I signed part of it.”
The detective's expression hardened.
“Which part?”
I pointed to the security reassignment.
“Only that.”
He studied the document.
May you like
Then said the words I had feared for eighteen years.
“Until we verify that, your signature connects you to the locked exit where four people died.”
