Chapter 4 - THE WOMEN BENEATH MERCY HOUSEMercy House had no lights.
The property appeared abandoned when we reached it shortly before dawn. Burned brick walls rose behind dead trees. Part of the original shelter had collapsed inward, leaving blackened windows open to the winter air.
Franco stopped the vehicles half a mile away.
Detective Marquez had contacted only four officers she trusted personally. Franco brought six men, including his second-in-command, Luca Bellandi.
Claire remained at a separate safe location with Dr. Costa.
I wore a bulletproof vest over borrowed clothes. My ankle was wrapped tightly, and every step sent pain up my leg.
Franco noticed me limping.
“I can still take you back.”
“No.”
“That was not an order.”
“It sounded like one.”
“I am working on that.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
He handed me a radio.
“One press if you cannot speak. Two if you see Roberto. Three if you are taken.”
“If I’m taken, I may not have time to count.”
His expression darkened.
“Then scream.”
“That worked so well in the basement.”
The words came out sharper than I intended.
Franco absorbed them.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked away.
“No. I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
He said it so firmly that I believed he had practiced saying those words to ghosts.
We entered through the burned section of the building.
The interior smelled of wet ash and old wood. Our flashlights moved across collapsed furniture, peeling wallpaper and faded murals of flowers.
Mercy House had once sheltered women escaping violence.
Roberto had turned it into a place where women disappeared.
We found the first security camera hidden inside a smoke detector.
Luca disabled it.
The second camera faced the main staircase.
A wire ran from it beneath the floor.
Franco followed the cable to a locked office.
Inside, modern monitors had been installed behind an antique desk. Several feeds showed empty hallways.
One screen showed Emily Soto.
She was tied to the same chair from Roberto’s video.
Another showed three narrow rooms.
Women occupied two of them.
Alive.
I gripped the desk.
“There are more.”
Marquez leaned closer.
“The time stamp is current.”
Franco studied the feeds.
“No visible guards.”
“That means they’re hidden,” Luca said.
I noticed something in Emily’s room.
A metal tray.
An IV pole.
A cardiac monitor.
“She’s connected to something.”
I enlarged the image.
Clear tubing ran from a bag into her arm.
“What is it?” Franco asked.
“I can’t tell.”
Marquez pointed to a digital clock on the wall.
A red number counted backward.
Thirty-eight minutes.
“It may be a bomb,” Luca said.
“No,” I whispered.
I recognized the infusion pump.
It was an older hospital model.
“The pump is programmed to begin delivering medication when the timer reaches zero.”
“What medication?” Franco asked.
“If Roberto designed this, something lethal.”
Franco turned to Luca.
“Find the power source.”
“Do not cut electricity,” I warned. “The pump has a battery. Power failure may trigger it early.”
A map hung behind the monitors. It showed the building’s original basement shelter and water lines.
One corridor had been marked with a red symbol.
A blue cross inside a circle.
St. Vincent.
We moved toward the lower floor.
The stairs ended at a steel door.
There was no visible lock, only a keypad and a small camera.
Franco looked at me.
“Roberto expects you at midnight.”
“He may have programmed it for my hospital employee number.”
“Why?”
“Because he likes proving he knows things about me.”
I entered the six digits.
The door opened.
Cold air moved up the stairwell.
My lungs stopped working.
Concrete.
Water dripping.
Darkness.
The smell returned me to the basement so quickly that the vest felt like a chain around my chest.
I could not move.
Franco stood one step below me.
He did not touch me.
“Megan.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No.”
“You can turn around. That is different.”
The distinction reached me through panic.
I could leave.
The door was open behind me.
No chain held my ankle.
Franco waited.
I placed one hand against the wall and descended.
The corridor below was lined with reinforced doors.
The first room was empty.
The second contained medical supplies, restraints and stacks of clothing sealed in plastic bags.
The third held a woman lying on a narrow cot.
Marquez opened the door.
The woman recoiled into the corner.
“We’re police,” Marquez said.
The woman shook her head violently.
“No police.”
I understood.
I removed my vest slowly and placed it on the floor.
“My name is Megan. Roberto held me too.”
Her eyes found the marks around my ankle.
Something changed.
“Is Emily here?” I asked.
The woman pointed down the corridor.
“Last room.”
“What is your name?”
“Danielle.”
I recognized her from the files.
“Can you walk?”
She nodded.
Marquez gave her a coat.
We found the second woman, Karen Wells, behind the next door. She was feverish and too weak to stand.
Luca carried her.
The timer on Emily’s monitor reached twenty-six minutes.
At the final room, we found no keypad.
Only a speaker.
Roberto’s voice came through it.
“You came early.”
Franco raised his gun toward the camera.
“Open the door.”
“I asked for Megan alone.”
“You know that was never going to happen.”
“I thought love might make you stupid.”
My entire body went cold.
Franco’s jaw tightened.
Roberto laughed.
“Did he tell you about Isabella, Megan? Did he tell you she begged him to unlock the door?”
“Yes,” I said.
The speaker went silent for a moment.
Roberto had not expected that.
“He told you?”
“He told me what he did.”
“And you still came with him?”
“I came for Emily.”
“You always did care too much about strangers.”
“Is that why you took me?”
“You remembered Karen.”
Behind us, the feverish woman lifted her head.
Karen was the unidentified patient.
She had survived.
“You saw her in the hospital,” Roberto continued. “You wrote down details that Dr. Mercer missed when he changed the chart.”
“You could have destroyed the notes.”
“I did.”
“Then why kidnap me?”
Silence.
I understood.
“It wasn’t enough that I forgot,” I said. “You needed me to know you had won.”
Franco looked toward the speaker.
Roberto’s breathing changed.
Men like him needed fear to prove they existed.
“You said no to me in front of nurses,” he replied. “You looked at me like I was ordinary.”
“So you chained me to a wall.”
“I taught you respect.”
“No. You taught me what you are.”
A lock clicked.
The door opened.
Emily sat in the center of the room, still attached to the infusion pump. The timer showed eighteen minutes.
No Roberto.
Franco and Luca searched the corners.
I went to Emily.
Her eyes were open, but she seemed heavily sedated.
“Megan?” she whispered.
“How do you know me?”
“He showed us your picture.”
I examined the IV bag.
No label.
The fluid was clear.
The pump tubing passed through a locked metal case before reaching her arm.
A pressure sensor was attached beneath the chair.
“If we move her, it may trigger the pump,” I said.
Marquez searched the walls.
“There has to be a shutoff.”
Franco found a phone on the table.
It rang.
He answered on speaker.
Roberto sounded pleased.
“The bag contains enough insulin to kill her within minutes.”
I checked Emily’s pulse.
Fast but steady.
“If that’s insulin, why use an infusion pump?” I asked. “You could have injected it.”
“Because I wanted to see whether the famous nurse could save someone while frightened.”
The timer reached fourteen minutes.
“Where are you?” Franco demanded.
“Closer than you think.”
The line ended.
I examined the pump.
The medication cartridge was locked inside a steel housing. Cutting the tube might trigger the pressure sensor.
“What do you need?” Franco asked.
“A second IV line. Dextrose. Glucagon if we have it. A screwdriver and something to keep pressure on the chair sensor.”
Luca opened the medical pack.
“We have dextrose.”
Marquez found tools in a cabinet.
I inserted a new IV into Emily’s other arm.
My hands shook.
I had placed thousands of IV lines at Chicago General.
But the concrete walls narrowed around me.
The darkness whispered.
Chain.
Footsteps.
Roberto.
Franco crouched across from me.
“Look at me.”
“I need to see the vein.”
“You already have it.”
I realized the catheter was in place.
I secured it.
“Talk to me,” he said.
“I’m working.”
“Tell me what you’re doing.”
“Preparing to treat severe hypoglycemia.”
“Next?”
“Open the pump casing.”
“Next?”
“Stop the infusion without changing pressure.”
His voice gave me a path through panic.
The timer reached six minutes.
We placed a heavy medical tank on the chair’s pressure pad while Franco lifted Emily by inches.
The sensor alarmed.
The pump accelerated.
“Damn it.”
Fluid raced through the tubing.
I clamped the line with forceps.
The locked case began beeping.
Emily’s body jerked.
I pushed dextrose into the second IV.
“More,” I ordered.
Luca handed me another syringe.
Franco tore the metal casing from the wall with both hands.
The pump tubing ripped free before the chamber emptied.
The timer reached zero.
Nothing exploded.
Emily’s eyes rolled back.
I checked her glucose.
Thirty-one.
“Stay with me,” I told her.
I administered more dextrose.
Thirty-nine.
Forty-eight.
Her pulse stabilized gradually.
Emily opened her eyes.
“Did we win?”
I almost cried.
“You’re alive.”
A gunshot sounded in the corridor.
Then another.
Franco pushed me behind the chair.
Luca fired through the doorway.
A man collapsed near the far wall.
More armed men appeared at the stairwell.
Antonio’s men.
They had followed us.
“We have company!” Marquez shouted.
The corridor filled with gunfire.
Franco shielded Emily and me while Luca returned fire.
Danielle and Karen were trapped near the stairs.
I saw one of Antonio’s men grab Danielle by the hair.
She screamed.
Something inside me changed.
I picked up Franco’s spare gun from the floor.
My hands knew medical instruments.
Not weapons.
But I aimed at the overhead light above the attacker.
I fired.
The light shattered.
He released Danielle and covered his face.
Marquez pulled her to safety.
Franco looked at the gun in my hand.
“Remind me never to make you angry.”
“I missed him.”
“You hit exactly what you aimed at.”
The attackers retreated.
Then a deep mechanical sound moved beneath the floor.
Water began pouring through vents along the corridor.
Roberto’s voice returned through the speakers.
“You should have waited until midnight.”
The steel door at the stairwell slammed shut.
Water climbed over our shoes.
Franco ran to the door.
Locked.
Luca fired at the hinges.
The bullets ricocheted.
The corridor was flooding.
Emily could barely stand. Karen was unconscious. Danielle began pounding against the walls.
I looked at the building map in my memory.
Original shelter.
Water system.
Storm corridor.
“There’s another exit,” I said.
“Where?” Franco asked.
“The red symbol on the map. It wasn’t marking this hallway. It was marking a water tunnel.”
The water reached my knees.
We moved toward the supply room.
Behind stacks of medical boxes, we found a circular maintenance hatch.
Franco pulled it open.
A narrow tunnel stretched into darkness.
One by one, we crawled inside.
Franco remained last.
The corridor water reached his waist.
“Hurry!” I shouted.
A figure appeared behind him.
Roberto.
He stood in the flooding corridor with a gun.
For the first time since the emergency room, I saw his face clearly.
He smiled at me.
May you like
Then he fired.
Franco jerked and fell into the water.
