Chapter 3 - The Empty Clinic on Pine Hollow Road
“THEY'RE MOVING HER EVERY TIME WE GET CLOSE.”
Marcus stared at the photograph on Naomi's phone.
Rain rolled down the windows of the SUV as we turned onto Pine Hollow Road.
I couldn't stop looking at Emily's face.
Her hair was tangled.
Her cheeks were pale.
But her eyes were open.
She was alive.
For now.
And the expression in those eyes told me something the men holding her captive didn't understand.
Emily was frightened.
But she hadn't surrendered.
Naomi sat beside the driver, speaking to agents positioned near the abandoned clinic.
“No entry until the medical team is ready. We don't know whether she's inside or whether the photograph is bait.”
I hated every second of waiting.
But I knew she was right.
If we rushed blindly into a building full of armed men, Emily could be the person who suffered most.
Daniel leaned toward me.
“Remember what Hale told you?”
I looked at him.
“Not to start a war.”
“Exactly.”
I turned the sunflower pendant between my fingers.
“I don't want a war, Daniel.”
“What do you want?”
“My wife back.”
He nodded.
“Then that's what we focus on.”
Pine Hollow Rehabilitation Center stood at the end of a narrow road surrounded by thick Virginia woods.
It had once been a respected long-term care facility.
Now weeds pushed through the parking lot.
Several windows were boarded shut.
A weathered sign hung crookedly above the entrance.
The place looked abandoned.
But someone had recently repaired the rear loading doors.
And tire marks crossed the muddy service driveway.
Federal agents secured the property while emergency medical personnel waited nearby.
I remained with Naomi outside the perimeter.
Every instinct inside me screamed to run toward the building.
Instead, I watched.
Ten minutes passed.
Then twenty.
Finally, an agent approached.
“The building is clear.”
My stomach dropped.
“She's not there?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you find anything?”
The agent glanced toward Naomi.
“Medical supplies. Fresh packaging. Evidence that someone was here recently.”
Naomi looked at me.
“Let's see what we can confirm.”
Inside, the air smelled of dust, disinfectant, and mildew.
The hallway walls were cracked.
Ceiling tiles had fallen to the floor.
But the room from the photograph was different.
Someone had cleaned it.
A portable medical monitor stood beside the bed.
Fresh bandages lay in an open trash bag.
There was a bottle of water on the floor.
And the words were still written above the bed.
YOU CAME TO THE WRONG PLACE.
I stood in the doorway.
I could almost see Emily lying there.
I imagined her waking up in pain, surrounded by strangers.
Asking for me.
Being told I wasn't coming.
My hands curled into fists.
Daniel stepped closer.
“Blake?”
I didn't answer.
My eyes had caught something beneath the bed.
A small strip of cream-colored fabric.
I crouched carefully.
It was torn from a sweater sleeve.
Emily's sweater.
The one she had worn during our last video call.
An evidence technician photographed the fabric before collecting it.
I looked toward Naomi.
“She was here.”
“Very likely.”
“She was right here.”
Naomi's expression softened.
“I know.”
A moment later, an older man appeared at the door.
He wore a stained maintenance jacket and held his hands nervously in front of him.
An agent introduced him as Walter Briggs, the property caretaker.
Walter looked terrified.
“I didn't know anybody was being held here.”
Naomi pulled up a chair.
“Then tell us what you did know.”
Walter swallowed.
“A man came last week. Said the owners were reopening part of the clinic for private patients. He paid me five hundred dollars to turn the electricity back on.”
“Describe him.”
“Big guy. Dark hair. Sheriff uniform.”
“Captain Pike?”
Naomi showed him a photograph.
Walter nodded immediately.
“That's him.”
I felt my jaw tighten.
“What happened last night?”
Walter looked at me.
“Two vans arrived around midnight. They carried somebody inside on a stretcher.”
“Was it my wife?”
“I didn't see her face.”
“What time did they leave?”
“A little after sunrise.”
“Which direction?”
Walter hesitated.
“There was a second vehicle. Black SUV. It went toward the river road.”
Naomi leaned forward.
“Did you hear anyone mention a destination?”
Walter rubbed his forehead.
“One of them complained about moving equipment twice. The other said something about Warehouse Seventeen.”
Ethan, who had been examining county property records on his laptop, looked up.
“Warehouse Seventeen?”
Walter nodded.
“That's what I heard.”
Naomi turned toward Ethan.
“Find it.”
While he searched, I wandered back toward the treatment room.
I stopped beside the window.
A little sunlight pierced the clouds.
For an instant, I imagined Emily standing beside me.
She had always loved quiet mornings.
Even when I came home exhausted from deployment, she would wake early and make coffee.
Sometimes we'd stand together at our kitchen window without speaking.
She once told me that silence felt different when someone you loved was standing beside you.
I hadn't understood what she meant then.
I understood now.
Daniel joined me.
“You know what scares me most?” I asked.
“What?”
“That I've spent years learning how to survive things other people can't imagine. But when my wife needed me, all I could do was listen.”
Daniel didn't offer an easy reassurance.
He simply stood there.
Then he said, “You couldn't stop what happened from five thousand miles away. What matters now is what you do with the time you have.”
I looked down.
“I keep hearing her scream.”
“I know.”
“And part of me wants to make every man responsible feel the same helplessness.”
Daniel was silent for a moment.
“That's the part you don't let make decisions.”
His words stayed with me.
Because he was right.
Justice wasn't the same thing as revenge.
And if I lost myself trying to punish Cameron Voss, Emily might lose the husband she was still fighting to come home to.
Ethan's voice broke through my thoughts.
“Found something.”
We gathered around his laptop.
On the screen was an old industrial map of the Richmond waterfront.
A cluster of warehouses stood beside an abandoned shipping facility.
One building was marked Number 17.
The property had been purchased eighteen months earlier by a company called Harbor East Development.
Ethan enlarged the ownership records.
Harbor East Development belonged to Voss Meridian Holdings.
I looked at Naomi.
“That's where they're keeping her.”
“Maybe.”
Ethan clicked another file.
“There's more. The warehouse was recently permitted for temporary medical storage.”
Daniel frowned.
“Why would an abandoned shipping warehouse need medical storage?”
“Exactly.”
Naomi immediately contacted the federal response team.
But before she finished, Walter Briggs approached the doorway again.
“Ma'am, I forgot something.”
She turned.
“What is it?”
Walter looked at me.
“The woman on the stretcher… I heard her talking.”
My heart jumped.
“What did she say?”
“She kept asking someone to tell her husband something.”
I stepped closer.
“Tell me.”
Walter closed his eyes, trying to remember.
“She said, ‘Tell Blake to look for the blue door.’”
A blue door.
My mind raced.
Then I remembered the photograph of Emily holding the handwritten sign.
Behind her shoulder, barely visible, was a patch of faded blue paint.
I reached for Naomi's phone.
“Zoom in.”
She enlarged the image.
There, behind the hospital bed, was a heavy industrial door.
Painted blue.
And scratched into the metal was a number.
17\.
Naomi was already moving.
“We need a medical team at that warehouse immediately.”
We hurried outside.
Agents climbed into their vehicles.
Engines started.
The rain had finally stopped.
For the first time, I felt we were moving toward Emily instead of chasing shadows.
Then Naomi received an urgent call.
She listened.
Her face hardened.
“What happened?”
A pause.
“Are you certain?”
She turned toward us.
“Traffic cameras just recorded two medical transport vans leaving Warehouse Seventeen.”
My chest tightened.
“When?”
“Four minutes ago.”
“Where are they going?”
Naomi looked directly at me.
“One van is heading toward the interstate. The other is heading toward the river.”
I stared at her.
“Which one has Emily?”
She didn't answer.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I put it on speaker.
A familiar voice laughed softly.
Cameron Voss.
“Ticktock, soldier.”
I gripped the phone.
“Where's my wife?”
“You're getting warmer, Blake.”
“Cameron, listen to me—”
He interrupted.
May you like
“You have twenty minutes to choose the right van. Pick the wrong one, and your wife disappears forever.”
The call ended.
