“They do. She was reported missing minutes ago, but the nurse called our department immediately, knowing we were involved in the case.”
“We’ll be there soon. We have a pretty short drive to it,” Gabriel states.
“I’ll see you there,” Michaels says, telling me he’s planning on arriving soon as well.
Gabriel hangs up and looks over at me. “I mean… I know you think Whitaker is still alive, but do you think Zach was still working for him? Like… he grabbed Nadineforhim?”
“Get me a picture of Nadine’s brother.”
“Oh fuck. You think that wasn’t Nadine’s brother? You think it was someone else?” Gabriel asks as he starts searching her socials. “Oh shit, Liam, you’re right. That wasn’t Nadine’s brother. We weren’t talking to her brother.”
“If that’s the person who took her, we at least know what he looks like,” I say. “I still don’t quite knowifit was him, but he did lie to us.”
“That’s true. If it really is Whitaker behind this and he’s busy playing puppet master, who knows how many others he has working with him like Zach and Jesse were? Were those the only two he ever used? To me, it sounds like he doesn’t just get his kicks from killing, but from manipulation as well.”
“It probably gives him a sense of control,” I mutter. “Get Jesse on the phone.”
Jesse answers almost immediately. I say, “Jesse, we need a picture of Whitaker.”
“Why the hell would you want a picture of Whitaker?” he asks, sounding reasonably wary, but I don’t have time for it. Thankfully, Gabriel is around when I don’t have the patience for others.
“Nadine is missing. When we went to visit her the other day, we had a talk with a man who said he was her brother, but Ijust found pictures of her brother on social media and it’s not him. We just… we want to make sure it’s not Whitaker,” Gabriel explains.
“No, it’s not him. It’s definitely not him,” Jesse says, but he doesn’t sound overly reassured.
“You said yourself that you didn’t think he died,” I remind him.
Jesse falls silent. “I’ll find a photograph.”
By the time we reach the hospital, Jesse still hasn’t sent us a picture. The two of us park as close as we can to the front door, and then we hurry up to the entrance where a security guard already has his eyes on us. We both flash him our badges and then rush inside. The problem with a place like a hospital is that it’s impossible to keep everyone out. It’s late, so the front door is closed like normal, but the ER can’t shut down when we don’t yet know what the problem is. This is a very large hospital with many wings, which means that the ER is in a different wing where people will have to be checked when leaving to make sure Nadine isn’t one of them. Security is also stationed at the tunnel that leads to the main hospital and ER.
“I’m going to share the information about the man we met with the security officers down here and then I’ll meet you up there,” Gabriel says.
“Okay. Please be careful.”
“I will.”
I take the stairs up to the third floor and reach the nurses’ station where a group of them are gathered and the head nurse is directing people where to go. The woman must recognize me because she hurries over to me. “You’re a detective, right?”
“Yes. How long ago was Nadine last checked on?”
“She has to have gone missing in the last thirty-seven minutes. The leads to her monitor were switched over to a second patient in the room with her, an elderly woman who wasmoved in last night because of a lack of beds. The other woman was asleep and doesn’t know or remember anything. When one of my nurses was walking by, she noticed the curtain was drawn a bit around Nadine’s bed and went in to check on her, which is when she saw she was missing.”
“The security cameras didn’t catch anything?” I ask.
“They’re being reviewed, but so far they’ve come across nothing.”
Thirty-seven minutes is plenty of time for someone to have done something to her. If they were watching the cameras enough to avoid them as they walked through the halls, then they might have even known how to easily get her out without detection.
I go into Nadine’s room and stare at the bed she’d been taken from. Everything she’d been attached to lies sprawled around it. When I step out of the room, I see Michaels and Gabriel talking to the nurses. I can hear them talking about the cameras on all of the exits as well as security. At this time of night, many hospital doors are unattended, but they are also locked. So how many unlocked doors are unattended? And how hard would it be to get an unconscious woman out of a huge hospital like this without anyone noticing? It’s after normal business hours, but there are still nurses and visitors. The risk is extremely high.
Gabriel glances over at me. “She’s still in the building, isn’t she?”
“I’m afraid she is,” I say.
“Why afraid? That’s a good thing, right?” the nurse asks.
I don’t bother answering her because I feel like it’d be best to get answers first. “Do you have a map of this wing?”
