49

Darby paced outside the room where she had found the photograph and statue. The two undercover Boston detectives who escorted her were somewhere in the dark, watching.

She pushed the button for the backlight for her watch. It was almost nine and Malcolm Fletcher still hadn't called.

The ancient building groaned around her. Down the hall, wind blew through a window, the sound like a high-pitched scream.

Darby felt the hospital's presence as though it was a living, breathing entity like the Overlook Hotel from The Shining. She didn't believe in ghosts but she knew there were places in this world that were haunted, where men had performed unspeakable acts of cruelty and violence against each other, where the cries of the damned lingered for eternity. As she waited, she wondered about the possible secrets waiting for her inside these walls.

Her phone rang. She grabbed it, heard silence on the other end of the line. Then she realized her phone was set to vibrate.

The ringing was coming from inside the patient room.

Darby had already mounted the tactical light on her SIG. She turned it on and found a cell phone lying on the floor behind the steel door.

'Step out of the room and turn to your left,' Malcolm Fletcher said. 'At the end of the hallway, you'll see a stairwell.'

Darby saw the stairs. They led only one way: down.

'Don't worry about the stairs or the landings,' Fletcher said. 'They're secure.'

Darby moved the beam of her tactical light around the cold, empty rooms. 'What happened to Jennifer Sanders?'

'Ask her yourself,' Fletcher said. 'She's waiting for you downstairs.'

'I know you're in here. I know you're watching me right now.'

Fletcher didn't answer.

'I'm alone,' Darby said. 'Show yourself. We'll go downstairs together.'

'I'm afraid you'll have to endure this journey alone.'

'I'm not going anywhere until you tell me your agenda.'

'I thought you wanted to know the truth.'

'Then tell me.'

'Telling you the truth doesn't carry the same impact as discovering it for yourself.'

'Tell me where you found the statue.'

'The historian Ian Kershaw said the road to Auschwitz was paved with indifference,' Fletcher said. 'It's time for you to choose. You need to make your decision now.'

Darby looked back to the stairs, thinking of Emma Hale and Judith Chen. She thought about Hannah Givens. She wondered if the answer to Jennifer Sanders' disappearance was, in fact, waiting somewhere below her.

She thought of Jennifer's mother clutching the crucifix tucked underneath the cellophane wrapper of her cigarettes and took the first step.

Descending into the awful dark, Darby was aware of her physical senses – the hollow feeling in her legs; the sweat collecting underneath her arms and hardhat; the way her footsteps echoed and thumped along with the rapid beating of her heart.

'How are you feeling?'

'Nervous,' Darby said. 'Scared.'

'Are you claustrophobic?'

'I don't think so. Why?'

'You'll see in a moment.'

Darby reached the bottom floor. She saw the steel door marked 'ward 8'. She hadn't searched this area over the weekend because it was locked. Reed had said the area was too unstable and refused to let anyone through, forcing the search teams to find alternate routes.

A padlock was lying on the floor. The lock had been sawed off.

'I'm here.'

'Open the door,' Fletcher said.

The corridors went straight ahead, to her left and right. They were narrow and pitch black and in the thin beam of her flashlight they seemed to stretch for miles.

'Your destination is straight ahead,' Fletcher said. 'When you reach the end of the corridor, turn left and travel halfway down the next hallway until you see a maintenance door.'

Exposed pipes ran along the walls, near the ceiling. Almost every door was shut. The floors were frozen with ice. Darby heard a humming sound and then realized it was her blood pounding against her ear drums.

The cold darkness pressing against her, she made her way down the main corridor, the ice slippery beneath her boots. She remembered a line from Dante, how hell wasn't burning with fire but rather a place where Satan was frozen in a lake of ice.

Darby turned left into another maze of corridors. On a wall of chipped white and blue paint was faded lettering with arrows pointing to the different locations inside the hospital. The frigid air smelled of dank pipes and mildew. She moved into the corridor, listening for sound and watching for movement.

Ten minutes later, she found the door marked 'MAINTENANCE'.

'I found the door,' Darby said.

Malcolm Fletcher didn't answer.

'Hello?'

No answer.

Darby checked the phone. The signal had dropped. She was too far underground.

She placed the phone on the floor. Leaning against the door, she pressed down on the handle with her elbow and pushed it open.

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