Chapter 5 - The Trap Springs
""Run out the back row,"" I muttered to Paige, shoving the top three manila folders and Chloe’s journal into my leather satchel. ""The fence behind unit 300 has a loose chain link at the bottom. Go to the diner near the turnpike. Don't go back to your apartment.""
""Brandon, what about you?""
""I'm the one they want. If they catch both of us, the files disappear.""
Without waiting for her answer, I pushed the heavy metal door all the way up, creating a loud, echoing bang that echoed across the storage complex. I burst out into the rain, sprinting toward the eastern corridor between rows of blue metal garages.
""He's running!"" Miller shouted.
Footsteps pounded behind me, splashing through ankle-deep puddles. The rain was blinding, stinging my eyes as I cut left around a blind corner. I knew this industrial park better than they did; during my second year of medical school, I had worked part-time delivering auto parts to the repair shops across the alley.
I vaulted over a low concrete barrier, landing hard on the slick asphalt of the service lane. Pain shot up through my right ankle, but the adrenaline surged hotter. Behind me, the beam of a high-powered flashlight cut through the fog, sweeping over the brick wall above my head.
""Stop right there, Campbell!""
I didn't stop. I dove between two parked delivery vans, scrambling into the shadows of an overgrown drainage ditch that ran parallel to the turnpike. Mud soaked through my trousers, coating my hands and knees as I scrambled through the tangled brush. Above me, the black SUV roared down the access road, tires spraying gravel as it swept past my hiding spot without slowing.
I lay face down in the freezing mud, panting in short, agonizing gasps, clutching the satchel against my chest as if it were a shield. My heart slammed against the wet earth beneath me. For ten minutes, I didn't move. The only sound was the steady roar of 18-wheelers passing on the highway and the drumming rain.
When the taillights of the SUV finally vanished into the distance, I crawled out of the culvert and made my way to an all-night gas station two miles down the road. Inside the bright, buzzing fluorescent sanctuary of the convenience store, the clerk looked at me with open horror—a disheveled man covered in mud and blood, holding a soggy leather bag.
I bought a cheap prepaid phone, a bottle of water, and clean dry socks. Sitting in the corner booth of the adjoining diner, I found Paige sitting with her hands wrapped around a cup of black coffee, her face white as chalk.
""They went to my apartment,"" she said as soon as I slid into the booth opposite her. Her phone was open on the laminate table, showing a notification from her wireless doorbell camera. Two men in suits had kicked her front door off its hinges twenty minutes ago.
""They're scrubbing everything,"" I said, opening the satchel. The papers were damp around the edges, but the text was legible. ""They know Chloe gave me the ledger. If they get their hands on this, they'll destroy it and stage an overdose or a car crash for both of us.""
""We go to the police,"" Paige insisted, her voice trembling. ""We take this to the state attorney.""
""The hospital board owns the county prosecutor's campaign,"" I answered, pointing to a ledger entry from 2018 showing a fifty-thousand-dollar contribution from an Oakridge subsidiary. ""And the county coroner is Vance’s brother-in-law. If we walk into the precinct with these papers, they’ll confiscate them as 'evidence' and we'll end up in a holding cell on fabricated drug charges.""
""Then what do we do?"" Paige’s voice broke, tears spilling down her cheeks. ""Chloe died so we could fix this. She spent her last three months playing the happy, joking patient just so she could get you to sign that wedding certificate and make you her legal next of kin!""
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I stopped. My breath caught in my throat. ""What did you say?""
Paige looked at me, realizing she had let the secret slip. ""She didn't marry you just because she liked your smile, Brandon. She loved you, yes—she told me you were the only real person in that entire sterile tomb. But under state law, a surviving spouse has immediate, absolute authority over a deceased patient's full medical autopsy records and pathological tissue samples. As long as she was single, Oakridge held her tissue power of attorney. The moment you slipped that bandage ring onto her finger, you became the only person on earth who could demand an independent federal forensic analysis of her tumor.""
