Chapter 3 - THE GHOST FROM SEVEN YEARS AGOUpstairs, in the administrative archives of St. Ambrose Mercy, the digital records terminal hummed in the quiet dark.
A figure sat before the glowing screen, fingers flying across the mechanical keyboard with practiced speed. The user ID logged into the system belonged to Dr. Alistair Vance—no relation to the crime family, but a senior administrator who hadn't logged into his terminal in three days.
The screen flashed: ACCESS GRANTED: PATIENT RECORD #44902 - VANCE, VIKTOR.
The user leaned closer, the harsh blue light reflecting off a sharp jawline and eyes that had seen too much cell block concrete. It wasn't an administrator. It was a woman wearing a stolen set of hospital scrubs, her hair tucked tightly beneath a disposable blue bouffant cap.
Wren Ashby.
She hadn't planned on breaking back into St. Ambrose when she walked out of Millbrook Correctional two days ago with twenty-four dollars and a bus ticket. She had intended to disappear into the gray anonymity of the city, find a basement room, and figure out how to breathe free air again after seven years of locked doors and iron bars.
Then she saw the news report on a corner bodega television: SHUTDOWN AT ST. AMBROSE: UNKNOWN MAN CHECKS IN WITH GUNSHOT WOUND.
And then, a second flash on the local police scanner app she'd downloaded on a borrowed smartphone: ANONYMOUS TIP REPORTING TARGET IN C-4 WARD.
Wren stared at the monitor, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She knew that name. She knew the face of the man who had just walked into her old hospital—the very hospital where her life had been systematically dismantled seven years ago.
Viktor Vance.
The name the detectives had whispered outside her room the night she was arrested for Marisol Cade's murder. The name the prosecutor had waved around like a holy relic before burying her under a life sentence without parole.
"You're alive," Wren whispered to the empty archive room, her fingers hovering over the print key. "And you came right back to where it all started."
May you like
She pressed print. The laser printer behind her whirred to life, spitting out a single sheet of paper containing Viktor’s current location: Room 412, Post-Op Recovery, West Wing.
As she reached down to grab the paper, a low, guttural growl vibrated from the doorway behind her.
