Chapter 11 - The Room Nobody Used
By midnight, Greywater's old utility wing was sealed with crime-scene tape. Deputies walked its corridors with a building engineer and a search warrant. The doors had been welded shut years ago, but someone had installed a new lock on the inside.
The first room contained cots, bottled water, and a television with its power cord removed. The second contained stacks of transport invoices. The third was painted bright blue, so fresh that a deputy got color on his sleeve.
There was no sign of Andrew Finch.
Grant photographed the rooms while the engineer examined the ventilation shafts. A narrow drain carried water toward an abandoned service road. The blue paint disguised new plaster around a doorframe.
"Someone built a doorway and then tried to hide it," the engineer said.
Behind the plaster they found a short passage leading to a loading hatch. Tire tracks outside were still wet from the night's rain. The tracks matched a van used by Meridian Patient Transit.
At a motel outside town, Owen and Iris waited with a child advocate. Owen kept staring at the clock. Four seventeen in the morning would come soon, and he couldn't stop thinking about that frozen clock above the loading ramp.
His mother sat on the edge of the bed. "You don't have to solve this, sweetheart. You're supposed to be worried about homework and who's sitting next to you at lunch."
"Dad would come for me."
"He would. And every adult who can help is looking for him."
Her phone rang. It was Grant.
"We've found evidence your husband was held in the utility wing," Grant said. "But they moved him before we arrived."
May you like
Owen heard the words from across the room. He felt something drop inside him.
Then Grant continued, "We also found a map. The transport routes don't lead to a hospital. They lead to a building everybody calls the Blue Room."
