I entered the hospital through the automatic glass doors and approached the woman flipping through a magazine at the information desk. I cleared my throat and she looked up.
“May I help you?”
Knowing there wasn’t time for pleasantries, I whipped out my badge and showed it to her. “I need to get to the personnel department. Which way do I go?”
“Oh dear, is someone expecting you?” She looked from left to right. “Ma’am, it’s hospital policy to have an escort if you’re going into restricted areas without an appointment.”
I jerked my chin toward the doors behind her. “I have an escort—you.” I took a quick glance at her name tag. “Come on, Sylvia. We don’t have time to waste.”
She looked apprehensive but rose, anyway, since I insisted. Sylvia led me through a set of automatic doors, down a long hallway, and through a second set of doors. We entered an area that resembled a typical office. It was filled with small rooms and cubicles. The hospital vibe had all but vanished. Sylvia looked over her shoulder at me. “We’re close.”
We went down two more hallways, then a placard on the wall told me we had reached our destination. The personnel department was just beyond the set of doors in front of us. We entered the large office space. Sylvia hung back and took a seat in a guest chair against the wall. I approached the first counter and pulled my badge from the lanyard. I slid it across the laminate surface to the only woman stationed there. “I need information on an employee, and I don’t have time to mess around.”
The woman looked at me, then my badge, then at me again, as if she were comparing my face to the image in the photo.
“It’s me, and I need you to pull up the employee file for Sam Reed.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said. “What department does he work in?”
“The lab.”
“One moment, please.”
I stared at her as she tapped the keyboard. She frowned at the screen and leaned in closer.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“We don’t have a record of a Sam Reed that works in the lab.”
“Okay, then just pull up his personnel file.”
“There isn’t one. We don’t have an employee named Sam Reed in the entire hospital. Are you sure he isn’t an outside vendor?”
“Yes I’m sure, and I interviewed him several days back in the lab. He has to be in the employee database.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but he isn’t.”
I spun toward Sylvia. “Let’s go. You’re taking me to the lab.” I checked the time on my phone as we followed the double yellow lines on the floor to a bank of elevators. Sylvia pressed the button. We waited until the bell dinged. I looked at the large arrow that illuminated as the doors parted, and we slipped in. Sylvia pressed the button for the fourth floor. The doors closed, and we rode up in silence.
I knew the way from there, but Sylvia apparently felt the need to escort me. I’m sure she feared her job could be on the line if she didn’t. I pushed through the doors, which opened to the lab’s waiting area and the small check-in window where Deb sat. She glanced up, rolled her eyes, and huffed.
“Don’t start with me and don’t talk. I need you to get Joan Miller out here right this minute.”
She shoved her chair away from the counter and disappeared through the door at her back. Minutes later, as I paced the floor, the door between the lab and the waiting area opened. Joan walked through.
“Agent Monroe,” she said in a whisper, “what’s this about?”
“Come with me.”
“But I’m working.”
“It’ll only take a minute.” When Sylvia began to stand, I pointed at her. “Stay put. We’re just going out in the hallway, and it’s a private conversation.”
Joan followed me then leaned against the wall when the door closed at our backs. “What’s going on?”
“I need information, Joan. It’s urgent.”
“Sure, if I can help.”
“You know Sam, right? The guy that files the blood samples?”
“Yeah, slightly, but he was fired the other day for missing too much work.”
I nodded. Now it made sense that personnel wouldn’t have his file anymore. It had been expunged from their database. “What did you know about Sam?”
“Not much since his position kept him pretty isolated, but he was a cute guy. Somewhat quiet but nice enough.”
“Sam Reed, right? I’m sure that’s what he said his name was.”
“Sam Reed? No, you must have misunderstood him. His name is Sam Ryan.”
I scribbled that down on my notepad. “You’re positive?”
“I mean, as positive as I can be since that’s what he told me. I can only go by his word.”
“Do you know if Sam drives a charcoal-gray van?”
She looked surprised. “Yeah, he does.”
“Good, that’s really good. Do you know what the plate number is, or even a partial number? I need to locate him. It’s urgent. Do you know where he lives?”
“No, he never mentioned it. But I do know the plate number. It was easy to remember, and I asked him about it once. We arrived to work at the same time and parked nose to nose. That’s when I saw it. I asked Sam what it meant as we walked in together.”
“Yeah, what was it?” I was getting anxious. “Hurry, just tell me.”
“Addie was written across the plates. That’s it, just the name. He said the van belonged to his mom.”
“Spell it.” Joan did, and I wrote it down. I squeezed her shoulders and took off toward the elevators as I pulled my phone out of my pocket. I yelled back before Joan crossed through the lab doors. “Tell Sylvia I showed myself out.”
I dialed as I waited for the down elevator. Sullivan answered immediately. “Captain, I have the plate info. Have the tech department pull it up right away.”
“Go ahead, Jade.”
I rattled off the name and made sure he had it spelled correctly.
“Good work, agent. Just so you know, the seller is a no-show. We’re going to give him fifteen more minutes then call it off.”
I climbed into the elevator and hit the button for the first floor. “I’ll come and meet you guys. What street are you sitting on?”
“We’re two blocks away from Franklin Park. J.T. and I are sitting on East Seventeenth and Cumberland.”
“I’ll find it.” I wrote down their location as I wedged the phone between my cheek and shoulder. “I’ll program it into my GPS as soon as I hang up. I should be there before our seller’s fifteen-minute deadline.”
I raced out of the hospital and jumped into the cruiser. With government plates on the car and nobody to question me, I hit the lights and sirens and headed to Franklin County Park. Two miles out, I silenced the sound and turned off the light bar. I didn’t want to spook our killer, if indeed he actually showed up. I called J.T. as I got closer.
“What’s the word, partner?”
“Andrews and Fitch are a half block from the meet-up point. They said nobody has arrived. Alex is hanging out in the parking lot and waiting in the car we borrowed from impound. We’re about to call it quits. Our guy either chickened out or smelled a trap.”
“Maybe, but I’m calling Charlie to see if they’ve pulled an address on the van yet. If Sam—as in Sam Ryan, not Sam Reed—isn’t coming to meet Alex, he may be at home. Don’t forget, if he’s our guy, he’s still holding Bethany and Kristen prisoner. Apparently, he was fired from the hospital for not showing up at work when scheduled. There has to be a reason for that.”
I clicked off the call and arrived a few minutes later behind the cruiser J.T. and Sullivan sat in. I killed the engine and tucked the car keys in my pocket. I quickly walked over and climbed into the backseat of their vehicle.
“Nothing yet?” I asked. I had positioned myself between their seats, dead center behind the console.
J.T. spoke up. “Alex is wired and ready to go, but according to him, no calls have come in, and he hasn’t seen any movement nearby. The buyer, known only by his log-in name, Seller4567, is in the wind. He’s twenty minutes late, and Alex had no way to contact him other than through the website.”
The radio squawked in Sullivan’s cruiser. “Sullivan here. What’s up?”
Andrews spoke from his location near the park. “Alex called me. He wants to know what he should do.”
Sullivan groaned into the phone and turned to J.T. then back to me.
J.T. checked the time. “Give him five more minutes, then tell Alex to leave and drive four blocks south to Hickory. Stone and Mills can escort him to the station. Let’s head back and reconvene in the conference room. Once we have Sam’s address, we’ll make our move.”