Chapter 5 - The Trap at St. Jude'sSearchlights swept across the front facade of the brownstone. Glass sprayed across the floor, glinting like diamonds in the dark room.
"They tracked your cell phone!" Marcus yelled over the deafening cracks of gunfire. "Emily, did you leave your phone on?!"
"I... I used it to call you!" I panicked, pressing myself against the base of the heavy oak desk while protecting Noah with my body.
"Throw it away!" Marcus commanded, pulling a small silver revolver from his desk drawer. He leaned around the corner of the wall and fired two warning shots out the shattered window. "They aren't going to let any of us leave this house alive. They know we have the document!"
"There’s a cellar door through the kitchen!" Marcus yelled, tossing a set of keys to Noah. "It leads to the alley behind the block! My old station wagon is parked there—blue sedan, license plate ends in 4-0-9. Take it and drive straight to the state police headquarters in Harrisburg! Don't trust the local precinct—Charlotte has half the city officials in her pocket!"
"We aren't leaving you here!" Noah shouted, tears streaming down his face.
"I’m an officer of the court, son! They won't kill a sitting judge in broad daylight, but they will murder you without a second thought! Go! Now!" Marcus yelled, firing another shot toward the window to buy us time.
I grabbed Noah by his coat jacket, pulling him toward the kitchen. We smashed through the cellar doors, scrambling down the concrete steps into the cold, damp dark. Behind us, the sounds of shouting and breaking wood echoed through the floorboards.
We stumbled into the back alley, diving into the old blue sedan. I shoved the key into the ignition, the engine sputtering to life with a loud roar just as two armed men rounded the corner of the alleyway. I slammed my foot on the accelerator, tires burning rubber as the car lurched forward, crashing through a plastic trash barrier and speeding out onto the main avenue.
My hands were trembling so violently on the steering wheel I could barely keep the car in its lane.
"Mom... look," Noah said, pointing at the dashboard radio display. A emergency broadcast alert was flashing across the screen.
A robotic news anchor's voice filled the cabin: "An emergency blue alert has been issued across the state of Pennsylvania. Nurse Emily Thorne is wanted for the armed kidnapping of seventeen-year-old Noah Whitman. Authorities state Thorne is considered armed and extremely dangerous after violently assaulting a private security detail..."
"They turned it on us," I whispered, horror choking my throat. "She’s using the police to hunt us down. We're fugitives."
"Where do we go?" Noah asked, his voice shaking. "We can't go to Harrisburg now—every state trooper on the highway will be looking for this car."
I looked at the dashboard clock. It was 3:00 AM.
"The hospital," I said suddenly, turning the wheel hard to the left.
"St. Jude’s?" Noah stared at me like I was crazy. "Mom, that's the first place they'll look!"
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"No," I replied, a cold realization dawning on me. "Mercy General’s old digital archive server didn't burn down in 2014, Noah. St. Jude’s bought Mercy’s old physical IT equipment. I’ve worked in the basement archives of St. Jude's for twelve years. If there is an uncorrupted digital backup of your mother's autopsies, it’s sitting on the cold-storage mainframe in my hospital’s sub-basement."
We weren't just running anymore. We were going to hunt for the truth.
