After the Darkness

MITCH WALKED INTO THE LADIES' ROOM. There were three cubicles, all of them empty.

He turned to leave, then stopped. Walking into the middle cubicle, he ran his finger across the top of the toilet seat. The dust was as thick as sugar icing. Mitch traced a letter G and looked up. Could a human being fit in there?

Back in the corridor, he yelled into his radio.

"I need to see plans of the ventilation system. Blueprints. Where do those tunnels go?"

The chief resident stepped out of the elevator and pointed at Mitch. "There! In the blue shirt." Three burly security guards rushed toward him. Seconds later Mitch found himself being manhandled toward the emergency stairs while the resident looked on, arms folded, smiling with satisfaction. Talk about a ballbuster.

"For God's sake! I'm a police officer. Do you realize what I could do to you guys for this? Let me go."

The biggest of the guards murmured, "You kidding, right? Do you realize what she could do to us if we let go of your ass? Trust me, Officer. You ain't got no idea."

GRACE'S VISION WAS CLEARING. SHE SAW light, faint rays at first, but they gradually got stronger. The tunnel forked left and right. The light was coming from the left.

Grace moved toward it.

"I SWEAR TO GOD, IF WE'VE lost her because of this bullshit, I will personally see to it they don't let you loose on a patient again with so much as a Band-Aid."

It had taken fifteen minutes for Mitch's boss, Lieutenant Dubray, to fax the necessary warrants and consents to the hospital. Only once she had them in her hands did the chief resident order her heavies to let Mitch out of her office.

"Don't try to scare me, Detective." She laughed. "Haven't you embarrassed yourself enough for one day?"

Mitch was about to hit back when one of his subordinates burst in.

"Blueprints," he panted, unrolling paper onto the desk.

GRACE LOOKED DOWN THROUGH THE GRILLE. The room was empty. This time it was tougher to wrench the ventilation panel free. Squeezed into the shaft like raw meat in a sausage skin, she was having a tough time getting any traction. Finally, with sweat from her efforts pouring down her back and chest, Grace pulled out the grille and eased herself down into the room below. The light was so bright it took a few seconds to get her bearings. She looked around.

I'm in an X-ray room.

She wondered how long it would be before the technician showed up with the next patient. Do they always leave the lights on, or did someone just step out for a minute? Voices outside the door answered her question. Two men were talking. Grace watched their shadows grow larger. They're coming in!

MITCH STUDIED THE BLUEPRINTS. THE VENTILATION shaft had nine grilles on the sixth floor, each of them a potential exit. Mitch dispatched men to each one. The bad news was he'd lost fifteen minutes. The good news was there was no way out of the building, nor could somebody crawl between floors. It was a case of "what goes up must come down."

"What's the closest exit to that ladies' room?"

The officer traced the tunnel with his finger.

"That would be...right here. X-ray and MRI room."

Mitch started running.

THE GRILLE IN THE X-RAY-ROOM CEILING was still hanging open. Grace hadn't bothered to try to cover her tracks. She knows she's running out of time.

"I don't understand it," said the technician. "I've been here the whole time. I stepped out for literally thirty seconds. But if she got in here while I was gone, she'd have had to come past our reception desk. Liza would have seen her for sure."

"Hmm. So would my men," said Mitch. He scratched his head. "Is there any other way out of here?"

"No."

"No service elevator? Fire stairs? No window?"

"No. Look around you, Detective. This is it."

Mitch looked around. The technician was right. The room was a smooth box, empty apart from the humming X-ray machine and the circular MRI tube. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Then suddenly he saw it. In the corner. A laundry hamper, full of used scrubs.

Heart pounding, Mitch dived in, pulling out used scrubs like a starving man hunting for food scraps in a Dumpster. In seconds, the floor was littered with blue hospital gowns and face masks. But no sign of Grace.

He tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

"Okay. So she must have gone back into the shaft. Where's the next exit?"

GRACE WAITED TILL THEY'D GONE. THEN, releasing the locked muscles in her arms and legs where she'd pressed herself flat against the top of the MRI tube, she fell into the body of the machine, bruising her ribs painfully. She'd outwitted Mitch Connors for now. But how much time had that bought her? A minute? Three? Five? Despair washed over her.

The whole hospital's surrounded. I'm never going to get out.

She contemplated giving up. Before she knew about Connie, and Lenny's betrayal, she'd never questioned why she kept running, why she kept fighting. It was all for Lenny. She had to clear his name, to honor his memory. Now, for the first time, Grace realized that wasn't enough anymore. She needed another, better reason. She needed to fight for herself. She needed to save her own life.

Easing herself out of the machine, she stood up.

I can't give up. I won't.

She picked up a set of scrubs from the pile on the floor and pulled them on.

GRACE WALKED SLOWLY TOWARD THE FIRE stairs, trying not to limp. I have to get off this floor. Make it to ground level and try and bluff my way out of here.

The X-ray-department receptionist watched her pass but said nothing. With her blue paper hat pulled low and a surgical mask over her face, she could have been anyone. Beyond reception, two cops stood by the swing doors. Grace waited with her heart in her mouth for one of them to ask her for ID, but they, too, let her pass. She was almost at the emergency exit door. Just a few more paces.

"Hey. Hey, you! In the blue."

Grace kept walking.

"HEY!" The voice got louder. "Stop!"

Keep going. Don't look back.

"You can't go out of there. It's..."

Grace opened the door.

"...alarmed."

Sirens whooped. Bells, shrill and deafening, rang in Grace's ears. For a moment she panicked, frozen. In a few seconds, the stairwell would be crawling with cops. I'll never make it down six floors. There's no time.

She looked up and started to run.

MITCH'S RADIO CRACKLED. "SHE'S ON THE east fire stairs. Sixth floor."

His heart leaped. "Cover every exit."

"Already done, sir."

"Tell all units, you can draw your weapons but do not fire. Understand? No shooting."

"Sir."

There was no way out of the building. Outside the hospital, the media had already begun to arrive. Mitch knew none of his men would have leaked the story, but it was tough to send a hundred cops into a major New York City hospital without people getting curious. TV crews scrambled to set up their equipment, eager to capture the drama as it unfolded. Mitch thought, They're probably hoping for a shoot-out. How much would the first shots of Grace Brookstein's dead body be worth?

He wished he could protect her. That he could stop her from running. Keep her safe, with him.

He headed for the roof.

GRACE LOOKED AROUND HER. This is it. The end of the road.

If only Manhattan's skyline were like a Spider-Man movie, where the next building over was always a short jump away. In real life, the eight-story hospital was sandwiched between two twenty-story towers. The only way down from the roof was via the fire stairs Grace had just come up, or an identical set of stairs on the western side of the building.

Unless, of course, you jumped.

Bolting both sets of fire doors behind her, Grace crawled on her hands and knees over to the edge of the rooftop, making her way around the perimeter. She peered over the edge of the rooftop. In a movie, there would have been a handy Dumpster to break her fall. Or a truck full of feather pillows that just happened to have pulled up at a red light. No such luck.

She heard the door to the east stairs start rattling. A few seconds later, the other door followed suit. They're coming.

Tears filled Grace's eyes. They would catch her. They would send her back to jail. She would never know the truth.

In that moment, as the rattling of the doors grew louder, it became clear.

She had nothing left to live for.

THE DOOR BURST OPEN, SENDING THE metal bolt clattering. Mitch shot out onto the concrete like a ball from a cannon. He looked up just in time to see a flash of blue disappearing over the edge of the rooftop.

"Grace! NO!"

He was too late.