Chapter 7 - The Red Room.
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I reached the front steps as a white medical van pulled away from Greenvale.
Ortiz was running across the courtyard behind it.
She had blood on one sleeve and a stolen access card in her hand.
“Clara is inside,” she shouted.
I jumped into the plumber's van.
Ortiz climbed into the passenger seat before I had fully stopped.
The medical van struck the outer gate and forced it open.
I followed through the broken iron doors.
Pine branches scraped both sides of our vehicle as we accelerated down the narrow road.
“Who is driving?” I asked.
“An orderly named Peter Sloane.”
“Does he work for Voss?”
“He works for whoever pays in cash.”
“Where are they taking her?”
“Probably somewhere without a patient registry.”
The van turned onto the highway.
A black SUV moved between us.
Its rear doors opened.
A man leaned out holding a shotgun.
Ortiz pulled the steering wheel toward her.
The blast shattered our windshield.
Glass covered the dashboard.
I fought the vehicle back into our lane.
“Still think this is a patient transfer?”
Ortiz drew a compact pistol from her jacket.
“I stopped thinking that in the basement.”
The SUV slowed to force us toward the guardrail.
I accelerated instead.
Our bumper struck its rear quarter panel.
The SUV fishtailed.
Ortiz fired through the broken windshield and hit its back tire.
Rubber exploded.
The SUV spun across the road and crashed into a drainage ditch.
We did not stop.
The medical van left the highway near an abandoned paper mill.
Its driver took a gravel road toward the river.
There was no other traffic.
The van's brake lights flashed once.
Then it disappeared behind a warehouse.
When we rounded the corner, the rear doors were open.
Clara lay strapped to a gurney inside.
Peter Sloane was gone.
A clear mask covered her mouth and nose.
The oxygen line led to a small cylinder on the floor.
Ortiz smelled the valve.
“Sedative gas.”
I tore the mask away.
Clara's pulse fluttered beneath my fingers.
“Clara, wake up.”
Her eyes opened halfway.
“Ethan?”
“Yes.”
She looked around in panic.
“Sophia?”
“With Victoria.”
Clara tried to sit up.
The straps held her down.
“Then we don't have time.”
I released the buckles.
“What is the red room?”
Her eyes focused on me.
“How do you know about that?”
“Sophia mouthed it in court.”
Clara closed her eyes briefly.
“She remembered.”
“Remembered what?”
“The room where Victoria recorded us.”
“Recorded you doing what?”
“Breaking.”
Ortiz climbed into the van.
“We need to move before Greenvale reports this vehicle stolen.”
Clara touched the puncture behind her ear.
“They made videos.”
“Of your confinement?” I asked.
“Of my reactions.”
She spoke slowly, fighting the drugs.
“They denied me sleep, changed the clocks, hid Sophia, and told me you had filed for divorce.”
“Then they filmed me screaming and submitted the clips as proof that I was unstable.”
My stomach turned.
“Where is the room?”
“At the old Sterling house.”
“The estate?”
“In the east wing behind the portrait gallery.”
I had grown up in that house.
The east wing had been closed after my father's death.
Victoria claimed the wiring was unsafe.
“Why would Sophia know about it?”
“Victoria brought her there twice.”
Clara's voice broke for the first time.
“She made Sophia watch me through the glass.”
I could not speak.
Ortiz looked away.
Clara gripped my sleeve.
“Listen to me.”
I forced myself to meet her eyes.
“The bread is not bread.”
“What does that mean?”
“I hid something inside the wrapper around the original loaf.”
“Sophia found a dinner roll in a garbage cart.”
“Because Nora kept moving the wrapper whenever security searched our room.”
“Who is Nora?”
“The night housekeeper.”
“The woman from the photograph?”
“No.”
Clara looked toward the river.
“The woman beside Arthur is Mara Reed, Elias's sister.”
“She helped me find him.”
“Then where is Elias?”
“Victoria has him.”
“Alive?”
“I don't know.”
Ortiz started the medical van.
“We cannot go directly to the estate.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because every patrol car in the county will be looking for this vehicle.”
Clara reached beneath the gurney and removed a magnetic tracker.
“She will not need patrol cars.”
A red light blinked on the device.
I crushed it beneath my shoe.
We abandoned the van beneath the mill and returned to the plumber's vehicle.
Adrian arranged a safe apartment above an old theater downtown.
The owner had once been represented by his father and asked no questions.
Clara showered for nearly an hour.
When she emerged, she wore borrowed jeans and a black sweater.
She looked less like a prisoner but no less exhausted.
I made soup.
She stared at the bowl as if it might contain a trap.
“You can watch me open another can,” I said.
“I believe the soup is safe.”
“Then eat.”
“I will.”
She lifted the spoon but did not bring it to her mouth.
I sat across from her.
“Why didn't you tell me about my father?”
Clara looked down.
“I tried the night before you left.”
“You said there were irregularities in the foundation.”
“I said your mother was stealing from the employee retirement fund.”
“You said you suspected her.”
“I had photographs.”
“I never saw them.”
“You would not look.”
The truth reopened every comfortable lie I had told myself.
I remembered packing while Clara stood beside the bed holding a folder.
I remembered telling her that my mother's faults did not make her a criminal.
I remembered saying Clara's obsession was damaging our marriage.
“What happened after I left?”
“Victoria arrived with Judge Halden and Dr. Voss.”
“Halden came to our house?”
“He called it a wellness intervention.”
“They showed me the video of you threatening me.”
“They said you had authorized emergency treatment.”
“I fought them.”
Her hand tightened around the spoon.
“Then Sophia came into the room.”
“They told me if I resisted again, they would charge me with harming her.”
“So you signed.”
“I signed the separation agreement, the guardianship consent, and a confession to stealing two million dollars.”
“Why didn't you go to the police?”
“I did.”
“What happened?”
“The desk sergeant called Victoria before I finished speaking.”
Clara finally took a spoonful of soup.
She swallowed with difficulty.
“After that, every door closed.”
“Why keep you at the hotel?”
“Because I knew Arthur was alive.”
“Why not kill you?”
“She needed the location of the ledger.”
“She thought you had it.”
“Yes.”
“And did you?”
“No.”
Clara looked at the red leather book on the table.
“Arthur had already moved it.”
A knock sounded downstairs.
Everyone froze.
Adrian checked the building cameras on his phone.
Nora Bell stood in the alley wearing a housekeeping uniform beneath a winter coat.
She held a paper grocery bag.
I let her in.
Nora was in her fifties, with tired eyes and hands rough from detergent.
When she saw Clara, she began to cry quietly.
“I am sorry.”
Clara hugged her.
“You kept Sophia alive.”
“Not enough.”
Nora placed the grocery bag on the table.
Inside were two clean hotel towels, a loaf wrapper, and Sophia's missing sneaker.
My throat tightened when I saw it.
Nora handed me the wrapper.
The plastic had been cut and resealed along one edge.
Inside was a narrow strip of microfilm.
“What is on it?” I asked.
“Every name that visited the red room,” Clara said.
Nora nodded.
“And one recording Victoria never knew the camera made.”
“Where is Sophia now?”
Nora looked at the floor.
“Mrs. Sterling took her to the estate.”
I reached for my coat.
Nora caught my arm.
“You cannot enter through the gates.”
“I am done asking permission.”
“The gates are not the danger.”
“What is?”
Nora removed Sophia's sneaker from the bag.
A small dark stain marked the inside lining.
“She injected the child before they left.”
Clara knocked over the soup bowl as she stood.
“With what?”
“I don't know.”
Nora's voice shook.
May you like
“But Dr. Voss told Mrs. Sterling that children remember less when they wake up in the red room.”
THE BREAD AGAINST MY SUIT
