Chapter 3 - The Midnight Evacuation
The car moved south along the waterfront while rain lashed the tinted glass.
Rosalind slammed the folder shut against her thighs, staring at the ring on Ambrose’s hand.
“Why is your family crest stamped on a murder file from six years ago?”
Ambrose did not pull his hand away.
“Because my father paid that investigator ten thousand dollars to bury the homicide charge.”
Rosalind lunged toward the car door handle, but the child locks were already engaged with a muted mechanical click.
“Let me out.”
“If I let you out, your brother will be dead before sunrise.”
Ambrose pulled his phone from his vest and tapped the screen without looking away from her.
“The men in the diner were scouts for the Castiglione family.”
“They found you tonight because someone inside your brother’s facility sold your visiting schedule for five hundred dollars.”
Rosalind grabbed the back of the driver’s seat.
“Turn this car around right now.”
The silver-haired driver did not flinch, his eyes remaining locked on the rain-slicked highway.
“We are already heading to Ridgeline, Miss Halloway,” the driver said quietly.
Twenty minutes later, the sedan cut its headlights and rolled into the dark parking lot of the Ridgeline Convalescent Center.
The building was a low brick structure surrounded by overgrown hedges and dim amber security lamps.
Rosalind threw her door open the second the locks disengaged and sprinted through the front doors.
Ambrose caught up to her in the reception lobby with effortless, long strides.
The lobby was dead quiet except for the hum of an old vending machine.
An orderly sat in a plastic chair near the hallway entrance, holding a broadsheet newspaper across his chest.
Ambrose caught Rosalind’s shoulder and pulled her back behind the shadow of a decorative pillar.
“Look at the headline on that paper,” Ambrose whispered.
Rosalind squinted across the dimly lit room.
The newspaper headline announced a mayoral debate that had taken place three days ago.
The man holding it was not reading.
His thumbs were hooked inside his jacket waistband, hovering right above the outline of a holster.
“Stay behind me,” Ambrose ordered.
He did not draw a weapon.
Instead, Ambrose whistled a single sharp note that echoed down the tile corridor.
Two men dressed in paramedic uniforms appeared from the rear service exit, pushing an empty gurney with military precision.
The orderly with the newspaper jumped to his feet, reaching into his jacket.
Ambrose closed the distance in three explosive strides, driving his forearm straight into the man’s throat and slamming his head back against the brick wall.
The orderly collapsed onto the floor, choking and limp.
Ambrose kicked the dropped revolver under the couch and signaled the paramedics into Room 104.
Miles was sleeping under a thin hospital blanket, his pale face hollowed by years of seizures and failed therapies.
Rosalind rushed to the bedside, grasping her brother’s cool, thin fingers.
“Miles, wake up, we have to move.”
Miles opened his heavy eyelids, staring at the strange men lifting him onto the gurney.
“Rosalind?”
His voice sounded like dry paper.
“Are you trying to fight everyone by yourself again?”
Before she could answer, the paramedics secured the straps and wheeled the gurney toward the loading dock.
They loaded Miles into the back of an unmarked transport van parked in the ambulance bay.
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Just as the metal doors slammed shut, a blinding pair of high beams lit up the access alley.
A black SUV accelerated through the entrance gate, revving its engine as it aimed directly at the van’s rear bumper.
