Chapter 15 - The Hospital Vault
Daniel didn't drive back to the local precinct. Instead, he pulled into the underground parking garage of St. Jude’s Private Clinic, an imposing, mirror-glass fortress located twenty minutes outside the city limits.
The rain drummed incessantly against the concrete ramps as Daniel killed the headlights.
"Detective Miller met us on the encrypted channel," Daniel said, unclipping his radio. "Miller has a federal warrant in hand for the clinic's secure cryogenic wing. We don't wait for morning. If Croft is running, he’s running here to clean the servers."
We took the private service elevator straight to the basement sub-level labeled *RESEARCH ARCHIVES & SECURE REPOSITORY*. The doors slid open to reveal polished white marble floors, pristine chrome fixtures, and Detective Miller standing beside two armed federal marshals in front of a heavy reinforced steel door.
Miller looked at me, taking in my singed jacket, soot-stained face, and the desperate clutch I had on the manila file. "Elizabeth. You shouldn't be on your feet."
"I have to see it," I said, my voice razor-sharp, cutting through the sterile hum of the air handlers. "Show me where they kept it."
Miller nodded solemnly and swiped a seized keycard through the digital reader. The pneumatic seal hissed open with a cold puff of vaporized nitrogen.
Inside, rows of tall, stainless-steel cryo-cylinders hummed under fluorescent strip lighting. Miller walked us down Row C, stopping in front of Vault Tank 114. The digital display on the glass panel glowed with a pale blue ledger:
*SPECIMEN IDENTIFIER: EMBRYO LINE VANCE-ALPHA.*
*DONOR (OOCYTE): ELIZABETH VANCE (UNCONSENTED SURGICAL HARVEST, 2018).*
*DONOR (SPERM): ARTHUR VANCE SR. (RESTRICTED ESTATE INVENTORY).*
*STATUS: VIABLE. TRANSFERRED TO GESTATIONAL HOST #4.*
Underneath the digital record was a live status feed linked to a private maternal ward on the top floor of the very same facility.
"The surrogate mother is upstairs right now, Elizabeth," Miller said quietly. "Her name is Elena Rostova. She’s under twenty-four-hour federal guard. She was brought in from Eastern Europe under a fraudulent medical visa financed through Martha’s private trust."
"Is the baby..." I couldn't finish the sentence. My throat tightened until I felt like I was suffocating. "Is the baby alive?"
"Thirty-six weeks along," Miller answered. "Elena was told she was carrying a child for an infertile couple. She had no idea the infant was the biological product of an incestuous corporate heist. But there’s another problem."
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Miller turned his tablet toward Daniel and me. A security alert was flashing in red across the screen.
"Thirty minutes ago, Chloe Vance checked herself into the private executive suite on the fourth floor under an alias. And she didn't come alone."
