Chapter 7 - The Clock Ticking
Detective Vance didn't ask questions. He was a homicide detective, but he had spent ten years on the bomb squad before that. His face went bone-white.
"Nobody touches that vehicle," Vance barked, grabbing his radio as he sprinted toward the hospital exit. "Dispatch! Code 1000 at St. Jude Memorial! Clear the ambulance bay immediately! Evacuate the first-floor ER and pediatric wing! We have a potential vehicle-borne explosive threat!"
Alarms began blaring through the hospital corridors—low, rhythmic warbles designed not to cause mass panic, but loud enough to mobilize every doctor and nurse into emergency protocols.
I ran back into Room 314.
"Clara! Wake up!" I shook my sister's shoulder.
Clara bolted upright, her eyes wide. "What? What is it?"
"We have to move them," I said, my voice steady despite the adrenaline roaring in my ears. "Now. Patricia rigged my truck. It's parked right outside."
Within three minutes, nurses had detached Ava and Lucas from their wall monitors and hooked them to portable battery units. We wheeled the beds out into the service elevator, moving them toward the reinforced concrete basement wing on the opposite side of the hospital complex.
Ava was clutching my hand, her knuckles white. "Daddy, is the bad lady coming?"
"No, baby," I lied, kissing her trembling fingers as the elevator descended. "She's far away. We're just moving to a quieter room so you can sleep."
Once the kids were safely situated in the underground pediatric isolation ward, protected by four feet of reinforced concrete and two armed deputies, I ran back up the stairwell and burst out through the hospital's rear delivery dock.
The rain was coming down in sheets now, cold and blinding.
Fifty yards away, the hospital's main ambulance bay was cordoned off with red barrier tape. Three bomb squad trucks from the State Police were parked with their halogen searchlights focused on the rear of my black SUV.
A technician in a heavy, Kevlar blast suit was kneeling at the tailgate, his visor down, operating a fiber-optic camera through the seal of the rear hatch.
Detective Vance stood fifty feet back behind the engine block of a squad car, holding an umbrella against the downpour. I ran up beside him, water instantly soaking through my jacket.
"Stay back, Mercer!" Vance yelled over the rain.
"Is there a bomb?" I shouted back.
The technician in the blast suit suddenly stepped back from the vehicle, held up a gloved hand, and formed an 'O' with his thumb and forefinger. He pulled off his heavy helmet, revealing sweat-soaked hair.
"Clear!" the tech yelled over the storm. "No explosives! No secondary detonators!"
Vance and I ran toward the rear of the vehicle.
The technician used a crowbar to pop open the rear hatch. Inside, sitting in the recessed well where the spare tire was stored, was a small, heavy plastic tackle box.
Vance drew his Glock, approached slowly, and flipped the plastic latches with the tip of his knife.
Inside wasn't a bomb.
Sitting on a bed of dry cotton was Emily's real diamond wedding ring—the one Patricia claimed had been lost in the hospital during Emily's autopsy.
Next to it were four prescription pill bottles with Emily's name scratched off, filled with digitalis extract, pure potassium chloride powder, and concentrated liquid nicotine.
And resting on top of the bottles was a handwritten note on floral stationery:
*A gift for the coroner, David. You wanted the truth? Here it is. Emily took three days to die, just like your brats were supposed to. But you cheated me. You stole what was mine. So now, I'm going to take the only thing you have left.*
"What does that mean?" I stammered, staring at the horror in the tackle box. "The kids are safe in the basement! What could she possibly take?"
Vance stared at the note, his eyes widening in sudden, horrific realization.
"She didn't hike up to the Mount Rogers cabin to hide," Vance whispered, terror creeping into his voice. "The car at the overlook... the cell phone ping... it was all a decoy."
"What are you talking about?"
"She left her phone at the cabin with an automated timer app to ping that tower!" Vance grabbed my jacket, his face inches from mine. "David, where is Emily buried?"
My heart stopped beating.
"Oakridge Memorial Park," I whispered, the words freezing in my throat. "Three miles from our house."
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"She knows you're here at the hospital," Vance said, turning and sprinting toward his squad car. "She knows your sister is here. She knows the house is covered in crime scene tape. She's not running away, David. She's finishing her ritual."
***
