Chapter 5 - The Underpass
The rain in the lower garage was loud, echoing off the concrete pillars like a thousand tiny hammers.
I ran. I didn't have a jacket. My shoes sloshed through puddles of motor oil and cold water as I sprinted down the concrete ramp leading out of the OHSU hospital complex onto Southwest Terwilliger Boulevard.
Behind me, the high-pitched wail of police sirens began to echo down the winding mountain road.
I knew I couldn't go home. I couldn't go to my sister’s house in Eugene—that would be the first place Adrian’s lawyers would check. I had no money, no phone, no coat, and the entire Portland Police Bureau was looking for a "psychotic mother" who had allegedly abducted her son.
I cut through the damp bushes lining the road, sliding down a muddy embankment into the darkness beneath the Marquam Bridge underpass.
The concrete vault overhead kept out the rain, but the air was freezing, smelling of damp earth, river mud, and diesel exhaust. I sank down against a concrete pillar, pulling my knees up to my chest, my body shaking so violently my teeth chattered together.
I was entirely alone.
"Hey," a voice rasped from the shadows near a pile of discarded wooden pallets.
I froze, my breath catching in my throat.
A figure emerged into the yellow glow of a distant streetlight—an elderly woman wrapped in three layers of mismatched coats, pushing a shopping cart lined with blue plastic tarps. Her face was weathered like old leather, but her blue eyes were sharp and clear under her woolen cap.
"You look like you just jumped out of a moving car, honey," the woman said, her voice rough from years of cold air.
"I... I had to leave," I stammered, my jaws locking from the cold.
The woman looked at my blood-stained hands, my hospital-soaked clothes, and the sheer terror in my eyes. She didn't ask if I was crazy. She had lived on the streets of Portland long enough to recognize the difference between a person suffering from a broken mind and a person running for their life.
She pulled a thick, gray woolen blanket from her cart and threw it over my shoulders.
"Name's Mae," she said, pulling a warm thermos of black coffee from her pocket and handing it to me. "Drink that. It tastes like dirt, but it’ll keep your heart beating."
I took the cup, the warmth of the metal burning my numb fingers. "Thank you."
"Who's chasing you?" Mae asked, leaning against her cart, pulling out a small hand-crank radio. "The law or a man?"
"Both," I whispered. "My husband's a doctor. He... he hurt my son. And he made everyone think I'm insane."
Mae let out a dry, hacking laugh. "Doctors. I used to work as a receptionist for a medical group downtown before my pension vanished. The ones with the high titles are always the worst. They think they're God, and when you don't bow down, they use the hospital stamps to erase you."
She turned the knob on her radio. The static crackled, then settled into the local news channel.
"...repeating our top story tonight. A statewide Endangered Missing Advisory has been issued for nine-year-old Caleb Cole, who was allegedly taken from OHSU Hospital by his mother, Laura Cole. Authorities report Mrs. Cole is suffering from an acute psychiatric episode. Dr. Adrian Cole, Chief of Vascular Surgery, has issued an appeal for her safe return..."
The radio broadcast cut to a recorded audio clip.
Adrian’s voice came through the tiny speaker—smooth, warm, choked with tears.
"Laura, if you're listening to this... please bring Caleb back. He needs his medicine. I love you both so much. I just want to help you."
Listening to his voice—so full of fake tenderness, so perfectly engineered to convince millions of listeners that he was a grieving hero—made me vomit. I leaned over into the dirt, dry-heaving until my ribs ached.
"He's good," Mae said, turning the radio volume down. "He's very good."
"I can't beat him," I wept, pressing my wet face into the scratchy blanket. "He has the police. He has the records. He has everything."
"He doesn't have everything," Mae said softly.
I looked up.
Mae pulled a battered, duct-taped smartphone from her coat pocket. "He has the papers, honey. But a man like that... a man who built a cage that big... didn't build it in one day. He had to buy the metal somewhere."
She handed me the phone. "My daughter works as a records clerk at the Multnomah County Courthouse. If your doctor husband has been filing fake papers, he had to use a notary. He had to pay court fees. He had to leave a trail."
I took the phone, looking at the small screen.
Mae was right. Adrian was meticulous, but he was also arrogant. He believed he was so much smarter than everyone else that he wouldn't bother hiding his footprints from someone he considered inferior.
"Who helped him?" I asked myself, remembering the psychiatric records on my phone.
The documents were signed by a Dr. Harrison Vance—no relation to Evelyn Vance—at the Pacific Northwest Psychiatric Institute.
I tapped the browser app on Mae's phone and typed in Dr. Harrison Vance's name.
A single news article from three years ago popped up: Dr. Harrison Vance Suspended from Medical Practice Following Investigation into Prescription Fraud and Medical Record Falsification.
My heart took a massive leap into my throat.
The man who signed my "psychiatric diagnosis" wasn't a practicing doctor anymore. He was a disgraced ex-physician who had lost his license for taking bribes to alter medical records.
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Adrian hadn't just used his authority—he had paid a criminal to forge my medical history.
"I have him," I whispered, the cold air in my lungs suddenly burning with a new, fierce heat. "I have him."
