Chapter 4 - The Hunt for the Man in the Gray Shirt
By sunrise, St. Anne Medical Center felt less like a house of healing and more like a fortress under siege.
Uniformed police officers blocked the main entrance, checking employee badges and logging every visitor entering the facility. Upstairs in the fourth-floor conference room, Detective Sergeant Vance—a sharp, no-nonsense investigator with a scarred eyebrow and piercing gray eyes—had set up a temporary command post.
I sat at the end of the long conference table alongside Ethan, who was drinking a carton of chocolate milk provided by the hospital cafeteria.
“Alright, Ethan,” Detective Vance said, leaning forward and resting his forearms on the table. He pulled a yellow legal pad toward himself. “Let’s talk about the man in the gray shirt again. You mentioned his badge was backward?”
Ethan nodded, taking a small sip of milk. “Yeah. The plastic part with his picture was facing his shirt. Only the metal clip showed.”
“Why do you think he did that?”
“Because he didn't want people to see who he was,” Ethan said simply. “Real workers wear their badges where you can read them. My dad had one when he worked downtown. He always made sure it was flipped out.”
Vance grunted in approval, scribbling a note on the pad. “Smart kid. What about his tool case? Did you notice anything distinctive about it?”
Ethan scrunched up his nose, thinking hard. “It had a yellow sticker on the latch. Like... a warning sign. With a lightning bolt.”
Vance looked up sharply, exchanging a quick, significant glance with Officer Miller standing by the door.
“High-voltage electrical gear,” Vance muttered. “St. Anne outsourced their heavy electrical maintenance to an independent contractor three months ago. Apex Engineering. Does that name ring a bell for anyone on administrative staff?”
“Apex?” Officer Miller frowned. “Those are the guys who installed the new emergency power grid upgrades in the west wing last month.”
“Pull their employee manifest,” Vance ordered, standing up and buttoning his jacket. “I want every technician who was on active rotation last night brought in for questioning by noon. And check their subcontractor sub-files. Someone inside this hospital gave that man access to the NICU wiring blueprints.”
As the detectives scrambled to run the database search, I looked down at Ethan.
“You’re doing incredible, buddy,” I whispered, squeezing his hand. “You’re helping them catch the bad guy.”
Ethan gave a small, solemn nod. “I just want to make sure Sophie is safe.”
“She is safe,” I assured him, though a cold knot of dread remained coiled in my chest.
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The question that hung heavily in the air—one nobody dared to say out loud—was why?
