Chapter 5 - THE GIRL DECLARED DEAD
The woman behind the wall knocked again.
Three taps.
A pause.
Then one final tap, weaker than the others.
Rosalie pressed both palms against the shelving unit.
"Mother?"
No answer came.
Footsteps continued along the corridor outside Room 317.
A man's voice ordered someone to check every door.
Maya moved beside Manuel and pointed toward the shelf bolts.
They had been driven into the wall recently, unlike the rusted fixtures elsewhere in the room.
Manuel handed the ledgers to Rosalie and gripped the nearest upright.
Maya took the other side.
Together they pulled.
The shelving unit shifted less than an inch.
The woman behind it gave a frightened breath.
"Quiet," Rosalie whispered.
"We are getting you out."
Manuel found a locking pin near the floor and kicked it sideways.
The entire shelf pivoted on concealed hinges.
Cold white light spilled through the opening.
The hidden room beyond belonged to the present, not the ruined hospital.
Its walls were clean.
A hospital bed stood beneath a ceiling camera.
An intravenous pump blinked beside it.
A woman with short gray-streaked hair lay beneath a thin blanket, one wrist secured loosely to the bedrail with padded restraint.
She was not Lorelei.
Rosalie stopped in the doorway.
The woman turned her face toward the light from Room 317.
Her skin was pale, and a crescent-shaped scar crossed her right eyebrow.
"You came back," she whispered.
Rosalie approached slowly.
"Do I know you?"
The woman smiled with exhausted sadness.
"You used to draw roses on the wall so I would know how many nights had passed."
Rosalie looked toward the nine-petaled flower beside her childhood name.
"Abigail."
The girl's name from Lorelei's recording.
The dead girl Thomas Nelson had hidden behind a false wall.
Abigail Cross began to cry without sound.
"They told me you forgot."
Rosalie released the padded strap around Abigail's wrist.
"They told me you died."
"They told everyone that."
Maya entered and checked the medication bag.
"Midazolam and saline."
"She is being kept sedated."
Abigail tried to sit upright.
Her limbs shook with the effort.
Manuel supported the bed frame while Rosalie steadied her shoulders.
"How long have you been here?" Maya asked.
"This time?"
Abigail's eyes moved toward the camera.
"Nine days."
"Where were you before?"
"A place called St. Orison."
"They use another name on the paperwork."
"Eleanor Marsh."
"Is Lorelei there?" Rosalie asked.
Abigail's expression changed.
"She was."
The footsteps outside stopped.
The door handle to Room 317 moved once.
Maya crossed the hidden room and pulled the camera cable from the wall.
The red light went dark.
"Can you walk?"
Abigail swung her feet to the floor.
"Not quickly."
Manuel looked around the hidden room.
A second door stood behind a privacy curtain.
He opened it and found a narrow medical corridor with modern utility lines overhead.
The secret ward connected directly to the retreat lodge.
At the far end, an illuminated EXIT sign glowed above a steel door.
"We have another route," he said.
The original door to Room 317 rattled.
A voice called through it.
"Mr. Nelson, step away from the evidence."
Emmett.
Rosalie's father had reached the corridor.
"You have removed a vulnerable patient from medical supervision," Emmett continued.
"No one needs to be hurt if you return the ledgers and open the door."
Abigail's nails dug into Rosalie's sleeve.
Her gaze moved to the rose drawn on the old wall.
"You used to tell me each petal was a place we would go when the doors opened," she whispered.
"One was the ocean."
"One was a city where no one knew our fathers."
"One was a house with windows that opened from the inside."
Rosalie looked at the nine-petaled flower.
Only fragments of that game returned, but the feeling beneath it was clear.
Two frightened girls had invented a future because the adults around them controlled the present.
"Did we ever choose the ninth place?" Rosalie asked.
Abigail gave a weak smile.
"You said we would decide after we escaped because choosing too early might make it another promise someone could take away."
Rosalie touched the edge of the blanket.
"Then we still get to choose it."
Abigail's nails dug into Rosalie's sleeve.
"He said the same thing the morning of the fire."
Rosalie moved between Abigail and the wall.
"He cannot see you."
"He always sees."
"Not anymore."
Manuel lifted Abigail into his arms.
She weighed less than she should have.
Maya gathered the medication labels, photographed the room, and took the camera's memory unit from a locked cabinet.
Rosalie carried the ledgers inside Manuel's tuxedo jacket.
The steel door at the end of the medical corridor opened into a laundry room on the lodge's lower level.
Warm air and the smell of bleach replaced the old smoke.
A washing machine was running.
Fresh sheets waited in carts.
The retreat was not abandoned.
Someone had prepared it for patients who did not officially exist.
They crossed the laundry and entered a service hall.
Voices echoed from the main level above.
Maya checked the building plan on her phone.
"Loading dock is west."
"The water tunnel is east," Manuel said.
"They know about the tunnel now."
"They know about every official exit."
Abigail raised her head from his shoulder.
"Kitchen freezer."
"What?"
"There is a lift beneath the kitchen freezer."
"It goes to the old boathouse."
Rosalie studied Abigail.
"How do you know?"
"Your mother found it."
They climbed one flight and entered the lodge kitchen through a swinging door.
Stainless steel counters reflected the snow outside.
Two chefs stood beside a prep table, motionless.
One held a knife over a chopped onion.
The other looked from Manuel to Abigail and then toward the hallway.
"Mr. Durham said the lower ward patient was dangerous," the older chef said.
Abigail laughed once.
It was a dry, painful sound.
"I have been dangerous since I learned to read invoices."
Rosalie placed one ledger on the counter and opened to a random page.
Names filled the columns beside payment amounts, medications, and judicial authorization codes.
The chef's face changed.
"My nephew was at a Durham youth center."
"Then help us," Rosalie said.
The chef locked the kitchen doors and pushed a rolling rack in front of them.
The second chef opened the walk-in freezer.
Behind stacked boxes, a square section of flooring lifted with a recessed handle.
Cold air rushed upward from a shaft.
A small freight platform waited below.
They lowered Abigail onto it first.
Maya followed with the evidence.
Rosalie stepped onto the platform.
Manuel was about to join her when the kitchen doors shook under a heavy blow.
The rack rolled six inches across the tile.
"Go," the chef told him.
"What about you?"
"I am a sixty-two-year-old man holding an onion knife."
"They will believe I was confused."
The rack moved again.
Manuel climbed onto the platform.
The chef released the brake.
The lift descended by counterweight into darkness.
Above them, the kitchen doors burst open.
Emmett's voice cut through the noise.
"Stop that lift."
A shot struck the metal frame.
Rosalie ducked over Abigail.
The platform dropped faster.
Manuel saw Maya's hand fly to her upper arm.
Blood darkened her sweater, but she remained standing.
"I am fine," she said before anyone asked.
"That is not the definition of fine," Manuel replied.
"Then redefine it later."
The lift reached the bottom with a violent jolt.
They entered a stone chamber beneath the kitchen.
An arched tunnel sloped toward the lake.
At the far end, daylight showed through missing boards in the boathouse wall.
Maya pressed a folded cloth against her arm.
The wound appeared shallow, but Rosalie's face went white at the sight of the blood.
Abigail touched her hand.
"Stay here."
Rosalie focused on her breathing.
"I am here."
They crossed the tunnel as the lift began rising behind them.
Emmett's people had found the controls.
The old boathouse leaned over the frozen shoreline.
A snowmobile and a utility sled stood beneath a tarp.
The fuel tank was full.
Maya gave Manuel the keys.
"Someone expected an emergency exit."
Abigail looked at the snowmobile.
"Lorelei."
"She kept routes open everywhere."
Manuel secured Abigail to the sled with blankets.
Rosalie sat beside her.
Maya climbed behind Manuel and held the evidence against her uninjured side.
The boathouse door opened as armed security entered the tunnel.
Manuel accelerated across the frozen lake.
A warning shot cracked behind them.
Ice dust rose beneath the track.
They crossed toward the northern shore where pine trees offered cover.
Halfway across, a dark line appeared beneath the snow.
A pressure ridge.
The snowmobile struck it and lifted.
For one suspended second, Manuel saw the entire white lake beneath them.
Then they landed hard.
The sled swung sideways.
Rosalie shielded Abigail with her body.
Maya nearly lost the ledgers but caught the strap around her wrist.
They reached the far shore as two black snowmobiles emerged from the boathouse.
Manuel drove into the trees.
Branches struck his shoulders and helmetless head.
The trail narrowed between rocks.
He heard engines behind them gaining.
A fallen pine blocked the route ahead.
Manuel braked.
The first pursuing snowmobile appeared through the trees.
Then headlights flashed from the opposite side of the fallen tree.
Three dark utility vehicles moved into position.
Men in winter tactical gear stepped out.
Manuel recognized none of them.
At their center stood Celeste Nelson.
She wore a long black coat, gloves, and the same expression she had worn at the gate.
She raised a pistol and aimed directly at her son.
"Turn off the engine," she said.
Manuel did not move.
Behind him, Emmett's security closed in.
Celeste's gaze shifted to the ledgers in Maya's arms.
"Give me the books," she ordered.
May you like
"Or none of you leave this forest alive."
THE KEY IN THE WEDDING DRESS
