CHAPTER 10 DECLAN #2
"Or waiting for Rina," I added. "Did it stop near the hospital before East River?"
Finn paused. "Give me a second."
The clock on Gabriel's wall moved with rude patience. One ten in the morning. Fifty minutes before Vale's deadline.
Aidan came through next on Cormac's second line. "Saint Brigid loading bay has three cameras down for maintenance since yesterday afternoon. Work order came from Mercer Continuity Assessment."
Gabriel's jaw flexed once. "Convenient."
"Too convenient," I said. "Vale wants us to see the hole."
"And if Harkin is inside it?" Isabella asked.
I looked at her, then at Nora. "Then we pull him out. But we don't send the drive or Nora into a bay with dead cameras because Vale asked nicely."
"He didn't ask nicely," Nora said.
"Exactly."
Cormac turned the phone photo toward himself and enlarged the background. Green sign. Gray wall. A strip of old tile. A metal handrail at waist height. Hospitals shared ugly design the way criminals shared lies, but something about the wall bothered me.
"Saint Brigid east loading was renovated," I said.
Cormac looked up.
"When Gabriel moved part of the transport contract away from them three years ago, they tore out the old corridor by the bay. New walls. Brighter lights. That photo shows the old tile."
"You remember the tile?" Siobhan asked.
"I remember a paramedic breaking his nose on that rail during a winter transfer. He bled on my shoes and apologized for it."
Nora stared at the photo. "So he may not be at the loading bay."
"He may have been photographed somewhere else under a sign that looks close enough to scare us."
Gabriel pointed at Cormac. "Pull old Saint Brigid floor plans. Every green exit sign, pre-renovation."
"Already moving."
"Maeve," Gabriel said.
Cormac had the call placed before the name finished leaving Gabriel's mouth. Maeve answered on the third ring, voice cold with sleep she had likely never reached.
"Tell me this is worth waking the hospital board president."
"It is," Gabriel said. "Saint Brigid. Old tile. Green exit sign. East service corridors before renovation. We need the archived plans now."
A pause. Paper shifted on her end, or maybe sheets. "Vale?"
"Harkin."
That was all Gabriel gave. It was enough. Maeve's voice sharpened. "Five minutes."
The line ended.
Gabriel looked at me. "Go to The Black Harp. Talk to Rina. If she knows where Harkin was held, I want it before two."
"I take Aidan and Finn."
"Take four."
"Four makes noise."
"Three, then. You are not walking into another street act with pride for armor."
I accepted the correction because he was right and because Nora was listening. "Three."
"Cormac stays here with the drive. Nora speaks to Rina on video first. If Rina lies, Declan finishes it in person."
Nora stood. The water glass remained untouched on the table beside her. "I want to ask the first question."
Gabriel's eyes narrowed. "You will ask what Cormac approves."
She looked at Cormac. "Will you approve the question that matters?"
Cormac's mouth tilted. "Depends whether you define matters like a lawyer or a grieving daughter."
"Nora defines it like Nora," Isabella said.
A quiet pride moved through Gabriel's face when Isabella spoke. It lasted one heartbeat. Then the boss returned.
"Set the call," he ordered.
Cormac connected with Eamon. The tablet screen filled with the back room of The Black Harp, uglier under security light than it had ever looked with whiskey on the tables and music downstairs.
Rina Voss sat in a chair, hands bound in front of her, red scarf gone, dark hair pulled loose on one side.
A bruise bloomed near her temple. Eamon stood behind her like a wall in a black coat.
Rina saw Nora and flinched.
That small movement did more than threats. It told me fear had a name, and it was Nora Brooks alive on a screen.
Nora stepped closer to the tablet. Her hand shook once, then steadied against the desk. "You asked for me."
Rina swallowed. "I asked before Vale sent the picture."
"Then you know Daniel Harkin is alive."
"I know he was alive."
My hand closed around the back of a chair. Nora heard the difference too. Her face lost color, but her voice did not break.
"Where was the photo taken?"
Rina's eyes jumped to Eamon, then to me on the side of the screen. "If I tell you, Vale kills my brother."
"If you don't," Nora said, "Harkin dies while you protect a man who helped murder patients for money. My father was one of them. Say his name before you ask me to pity yours."
Rina's mouth trembled. She looked younger without the scarf and the sharpness she had worn at East River. Fear stripped people down. Sometimes it revealed a soul. Sometimes only another lie.
"Thomas Brooks," she whispered.
Nora closed her eyes for one second. When she opened them, wetness shone there and did not fall. "Where was the photo taken?"
Rina breathed through her nose. "Old Saint Brigid outpatient corridor. The east bay is wrong. Under the chapel wing. The green sign leads to a service stair that connects to the closed morgue lift."
Cormac's fingers moved across his keyboard. "The morgue lift was sealed."
"It was listed sealed," Rina said. "Mercer paid to keep it usable for private transfers. They move people who can't appear on intake logs. Harkin handled two of those transfers before he ran."
Gabriel leaned over the desk. "Where is he now?"
Rina shook her head fast. "I don't know. The photo could be old. Vale uses timed proof. He sends breath clips when he wants obedience."
"Breath clips?" Nora asked.
"Five-second videos. Harkin alive, saying the hour."
Cormac looked at the phone. "This message had no video."
"Then he wants you moving before proof," Rina said. "Please. I told you."
Nora looked at me.
The drive's light blinked beside Cormac's laptop, small and steady. Thomas Brooks had left a map of ghosts. Every one of them pointed at another door.
"Ask her about SMT-27," I said.
Nora turned back to the screen. "Who put my father's transfer on SMT-27?"
Rina's gaze dropped.
My pulse hit once, hard.
"Rina," Nora said.
"Harkin drove one segment," Rina whispered. "But the authorization came through a Stone account holder. Gabriel did not sign it. Cormac did not sign it. A board access account with old credentials. I never saw the name. I saw initials on the override. M.S."
The room changed.
Isabella's hands tightened on Nora's shoulders. Gabriel went very still. Cormac stopped typing.
Maeve Stone's initials sat in the air like smoke after a gunshot.
"Say that again," Gabriel said.
Rina went pale. "I don't know if it was her. I don't. Mercer used stolen credentials. Shared accounts. Dead accounts. He built the system that way. I only saw M.S. on the override."
Nora turned toward Gabriel. "Maeve?"
Gabriel did not answer her. His eyes had gone flat and bright in a way I knew from old rooms where men confessed too late.
Cormac's computer chimed. Maeve's archived plans landed on his screen at the same time the desk phone rang from Finn.
Cormac opened the file. Finn spoke over the speaker.
"Boss, traffic hit. Black medical van just entered Saint Brigid south access. Plates removed. Same make as the one outside East River."
On Cormac's screen, the old hospital plans loaded. The south access service tunnel ran under the chapel wing and touched the old morgue lift.
The photo had never been a loading-bay warning.
It was a map.
Gabriel looked at me. "Go."
I was already moving. Aidan met me at the study door with my coat and gun. Finn was pulling the car around. Behind me, Nora said my name.
I turned.
She stood near the desk, one hand pressed to the bandage on her arm. Her face was pale. Her eyes were clear.
"Bring him back," she said.
The words could have passed for an order to Gabriel's man. They hit like a hand to my chest.
"I will."
"And come back too."
The second part came lower. It belonged only to me.
For once in my life, I had no clean answer that would not expose too much in front of the room. I crossed back before Gabriel could stop me, before I could stop myself, and took the hand she had against her bandage. Carefully. So carefully it hurt.
Her fingers curled into mine.
"Lock the door behind me," I said. "Open it for nobody unless Gabriel says my name through the camera. A phone voice is not enough. His face. His mouth. Understand?"
"Because voices can be faked."
"Yes."
"Declan."
I held her gaze.
"I understand," she said.
I let go because staying would make me useless.
The cold from outside rushed down the hall when Aidan opened the front door.
Behind me, Gabriel was already giving orders.
Cormac was sealing the drive. Isabella had one arm around Nora, but Nora's eyes stayed on me until the study door cut her from sight.
The SUV waited at the curb with its engine running and lights off. Finn had the wheel. Aidan slid in beside me, another soldier in back. My phone showed one forty-six.
Fourteen minutes until Vale's deadline.
The townhouse gates opened, and we went hard into the winter street toward Saint Brigid, toward the south access tunnel, toward whatever Vale had left breathing under green hospital light.